Quirky questions

Story by Kathleen Crowley

In an annual event called Heifer in Your Tank, students in Frank Robinson’s Animal Science 200 class at the University of Alberta present the answers to unusual agricultural questions such as, “What parts of pigs make crayons?” and “How many cows would it take to power your home theatre system?” Inspired by this event, we uncover the answer to yet another quirky question.

The Question: If a dairy cow eats garlic, will she produce garlic butter?

The short answer: You bet. But don’t put the garlic press away yet!

Here’s how: If Daisy gets into the garlic patch, the flavour of the greens she munches will get stored in her body fat. The fat content of the next litre or so of milk she produces will have a definite hint of garlic. Butter is a by-product of milk fat, so any butter made from her milk will also be garlic-flavoured.

However, a garlic-munching cow won’t produce the kind of garlic butter we’re accustomed to slathering on crusty bread. “Garlic, wild onion, cabbage and other flavourful compounds create ‘off-flavouring’ in the cow’s milk,” says University of Alberta professor Frank Robinson. That off-flavouring can be off-putting. Robinson says the flavourings don’t travel well through the cow. “When I was a boy, our cow got into the mustard plants and her milk was really different – not a good different.”

Most cows are now raised in a controlled environment so off-flavouring is not an issue when they are milked. The flavour findings do have important implications though. It means that flavour and texture can also be improved by modifying an animal’s diet. For instance, beef cows are grain fed to give the characteristic marbling and texture of beef.

Professor Robinson says it underscores the effect of food on all animal protein: “You are what you eat.”