Palm Fat use in dairy rations – a closer look By: Brian Nelson Dairy Specialist Grand Valley Fortifiers
Palm fat usage in dairy rations has generated quite the buzz this past week. Its great to see some interest and discussion surrounding our food production systems. Butter chemistry, global palm fat production and palmitic acid use as a feed additive in dairy production are all complex issues. These topics require reading beyond the headlines to fully appreciate and to begin to understand the scope and science behind these topics. Are Dairy Producers misleading the consumer? Feeding palm fat is not a new phenomenon for dairy producers, nor is it a secret of dairy production. Palm fat derivates have been selectively fed to dairy cows for over a decade. A simple Google search of “palm fat and dairy cows” returns over 4 million search results. The bigger issue our food production system faces is the knowledge gap between farm and fork. The dairy industry is 50 years beyond cows on pasture eating nothing but grass in the summer and dry hay in the winter. Does the average consumer know what a modern dairy cow producing 35L of milk eats in a day? Or the diet of a hog? Or a laying hen? Does the average consumer know how to grow 200 bushel corn? Or how canola or soy is grown and processed? None of these answers are secret. I am not pointing fingers or assigning blame. We simply are not asking enough questions or seeking out this knowledge. It is evident that the agricultural community is also not doing enough to bridge this gap. We don’t appreciate the fact that animal nutrition is not just famers cooking dinner for their cows in a kitchen, this is a year long process involving an educated management team to ensure nutrition is well balanced for health, productivity and optimal animal welfare. Is Palm Fat production destroying the planet? Are we really cutting down the rain forest in Malaysia and Indonesia to feed dairy cows in North America? The answer is firmly NO. Companies, like Jefo who specialize in fat supplements, are committed to only using sustainably produced palm fat according to the NDFE Framework. This means 100% of Jefo palm fats in Canada are produced with standards prohibiting deforestation, peat, or exploitation in palm plantations and suppliers. If you want to read beyond the headlines and critically look at this issue, there are also positives for palm fat production. One acre of palm oil trees can produce as much as 10 times the amount of oil as an acre of traditional oilseed crop and requires less fertilizer and chemical inputs to do so. Palm plantations are also providing valuable employment and revenue to small scale farmers. Rather than stopping palm oil production, there is continuous effort to produce palm oil using sustainable agricultural practices. It should also be noted the use of palm fats in dairy feeds accounts for a very small share of palm use and is by no means the driver for palm production. Organizations like World
Wildlife Fund are focusing their efforts on ethically and sustainably producing palm oil, rather than shutting down the whole palm oil industry. It might also be shocking to learn how widespread palm usage is in the world. Palm oil is in everything. It is becoming increasingly difficult to identify supermarket products without any palm oil or palm oil derivatives. Take a look inside your cupboards and start reading the ingredient lists of processed foods. Agriculture accounts for only a fraction of palm fat usage world wide. What is palmitic acid? A bit of high school chemistry is needed to begin to understand fat nutrition and metabolism. To keep things simple, fat is a broad term in nutrition that describes compounds that contain fatty acids. Fatty acids are chains of carbon atoms covered with hydrogen atoms. Fatty acids have different functions depending on their length and number of double bonds in the chain. We often hear of saturated fats, unsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). This just refers to the number of double bonds in the fatty acid chain and how saturated they are with hydrogen atoms. Palmitic acid (C16:0) is the most common saturated fatty acid found in the human body. It can be naturally produced in the body from other fats, sugars, and proteins, and can be provided in the diet. Palmitic acid is also the most common saturated fatty acid found in cows and is one of the main fatty acids supplied in palm fat derived feed supplements. Palmitic acid is also naturally found in all feeds fed to dairy cows. It is well established palmitic acid occurs naturally in dairy milk. Palmitic acid can be synthesized by the mammary gland and/or derived from the diet. In fact, palmitic acid makes approximately 30% of total fatty acids in the milk of cows. Purified palmitic acid derived from palm oil is a targeted source of energy for cows. Feeding small amounts of palmitic acid (250g / day, approximately 1% of a cow’s diet) provides extra energy and saturated free fatty acids that can be used for energy metabolism and milk production. By feeding palm fat, dairy producers are opting to feed plant-based fats to dairy cows. Meaning, when needed, we are making up energy shortcomings in rations with plant-based products like palm oil rather than using animal based fats like tallow and lard. Where does milk fat come from? Cows are ruminants, meaning they have a complex stomach that relies on a diverse population of microbes to break down feeds (forages). These forages get broken down in the rumen (stomach) into short chain fatty acids that get absorbed into the bloodstream. Dietary fats that are unsaturated undergo biohydrogenation in the rumen and get converted to saturated fats. Meaning the cow is naturally producing saturated fat. In fact, 60-65% of total fatty acids in milk are saturated.
Milk fat is made up of fats from multiple sources. These include short chain fatty acids made in the mammary gland from products of rumen fermentation and fat from the animal’s diet and body fat reserves. Approximately 50% of milk fatty acids are made directly in the cow’s mammary gland and the other 50% are fatty acids drawn from the bloodstream. In milk, individual fatty acids are connected to form triglyceride molecules which are arranged into milk fat globules. Fatty acid analysis of cow’s milk is an emerging area of research and a valuable tool for understanding milk fat production and dairy nutrition in order to maximize milk quality. If you analyzed the milk fatty acid profile you would see three distinct pools of fatty acids, grouped according to their size. In total milk fat is comprised of over 400 individual fatty acids. What’s fascinating is the amount of variation in fatty acid profiles. Milk fat profiles are influenced by: 1) 2) 3) 4)
Diet (forages fed, forage quality, pasture, carbohydrates, and unsaturated fats in diet) Feeding practices (physical presentation of ration, TMR, number of feedings / day, etc.) Cow factors (Genetics, stage of lactation, health, energy balance) Climate / season (changes in photoperiod, heat stress, etc.)
It is also interesting to note the differences in milk fat profiles based on different production systems. There have been some discussions where people are claiming grass fed butter or organic butter has a lower melting point. Some studies have shown similar levels of palmitic acid in conventional and organic butter milk, but higher levels of unsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids in organic milk. This again should highlight the complexity of milk chemistry. Without understanding the issues it is easy to point fingers at palm fat, but the simplest hypothesis is not always the correct one. What’s up with Butter? To date, there is no evidence of a direct link between feeding palmitic acid supplements and altered butter fat melting point. Any evidence of this is strictly anecdotal, even if it is a kitchen observation from a food scientist. This is not to say butter has not changed or everyone is wrong in their observation; there simply is not quantifiable evidence or an explanation for this. Another ongoing story is the issue of non-frothing lattes. Milk that has foamed before its end use is difficult to foam again. Concurrent with the use of palm fat, there has been widespread adoption of voluntary milking systems and aggressive updates to milk processing plants to move larger volumes of milk more quickly. Milk handling and mixing can increase lipolysis (break down of fat), altering the physical structure of milk globules while increasing the level of free fatty acids in milk. Due to forage shortages in the past couple years, there have been higher levels of corn silage fed in rations, especially in Ontario. We know that forages in the diet significantly alter fatty acid profiles. It is clear that milk biochemistry is a complex topic. This is area that requires further scientific study before reaching any conclusion.
What’s next? At the end of the day, Canadian Dairy producers produce milk for the Canadian consumer. If there is scientific evidence palmitic acid supplements are altering butter fat chemistry, then the industry will need to evaluate this practice. Until then, we need to continue gather information and critically evaluate facts before acting out of haste or emotion. Rash decisions without facts are in nobody’s best interest. We all need to stop pointing fingers and start having open and honest discussions about where our food comes from. If you are interested in learning more about fatty acid metabolism in dairy cows, check out this video by Dr. Adam Lock. He is the world leading expert on fatty acid nutrition and metabolism in dairy cows and has published many peer reviewed journal articles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55YvgyPgm0&feature=youtu.be