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T[_1_] T[_1_] is offline
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Default why does butter last longer than cheese?

In article >,
says...
> In article . com>,
>
wrote:
>
> > Hi all, a couple of sunday morning ponderings for you if I may.
> >
> > once you have broken the seal on a packet of cheese, it generally goes
> > off in a few weeks, whereas butter will last months (maybe a year) in
> > the fridge before it's inedible. but they're both made of basically the
> > same thing. how does this work?
> >
> > also, milk lasts even less long than either butter or cheese - how
> > come?
> >
> > Andy

>
> Cheese has more available nutrients. Protein and lactose.
>
> Butter is pretty much pure fat. And it's preserved with salt on top of
> that. Not a lot of critters can metabolized that in the way of fungus
> and bacteria. Too bad humans are not that way eh? <G>
>
> Frozen butter keeps for years, and freezing cheese preserves it longer
> as well but renders it only good for cooking, texture-wise.


This has been immensely informative to me. Around here a pound of butter
rarely lasts more than a month. It's unsalted and unused sticks are kept
in a burped ziploc type bag in the fridge to prevent cross contamination
from other smelly things that might be in the fridge at any given time.