EXPLAINER: Understanding various different Milk types

Groggy, sitting at a kitchen counter at 7 a.m., I stare at my so-called meal. The usual cereal and milk. With nothing better to do I glance at my red-tipped whole milk and wonder ‘What percentage milk is this?’ Is 2% milk only 2% milk and 98% something else?

Dairy milk is milk that comes from cows. It is created during a cow’s pregnancy to be given to its calf as its only source of nutrition until it begins to eat grass. Humans originally could not process milk after infancy. Humans had domesticated cattle around ten thousand years ago, around six thousand years ago humans began drinking milk from cows (for some reason) and some people eventually developed a tolerance for lactose.

Whole milk is essentially raw milk that comes straight from a cow, with a few minor differences. Raw milk is richer, and unpasteurized, meaning it can contain bacteria, and often has cream that floats on top of it. Whole milk isn’t as rich and is pasteurized, which is a process of heating the drink to a temperature hot enough to kill off harmful bacteria, so it is safe to drink. Whole milk is made of 87% water and 3.25% fat. pasteurization. When milk is spun quickly, the cream and fat get separated from the milk, allowing producers to choose how much fat is in milk. Reduced-fat milk, also called 2% milk, only contains 2% milk fat. Skim milk only contains 1% milkfat, and non-fat milk contains less than 1% milkfat.

So, what happens with excess fat? The fat is used in other dairy products. Clarified butter, for instance, is made of 100% fat. Heavy whipping cream is made of 30% fat, coffee cream is 18-30% fat, and half-and-half is between 10.5-18% fat.

Using the same naming system and logic that is used for 2% milk, ‘100% milk’ is butter, and half-and-half can contain more than half the fat of coffee cream.