Breastmilk butter...

I still have a whole bunch of breastmilk in the freezer that I'm trying to ration to get it to last as long as possible. I've been giving Charlie the breastmilk at night because she's guaranteed to keep it down and then formula during the day. I'm still anxious to get her on some food and I've been adding it to her formula during the day, but she does still vomit occasionally, so it's messier than just milk. So I thought, "Why not just mix it in with her milk?" Ok, so I know you are technically not supposed to shake breastmilk because it can sort of change the composition of it, but I figure Charlie's 10 1/2 months, she can handle it being a little different. So I stuck it in the blender with her food.

So I blended and blended. And I opened the container and it has foamy looking stuff sitting on top. So I blend it some more. And there's still more foamy stuff. I poked it with my finger and it's very solid. So I blended some more. But it just will not blend! So finally I *scooped* some out with my finger and really felt it. It was BUTTER! Yup, I felt like and idiot.

But now I know. She'll get plain breastmilk alone and food will have to be mixed with either water, formula, or some other milk. I thought it was interesting though. I've never made butter before with any kind of milk. I know you can cook with breastmilk. I've done it before when I've run out of cow's milk. The one time I made muffins with it, they turned out very "heavy". But I wonder if I'd whipped the milk, skimmed off the butter, and just used the skim milk if they would have turned out better. When I was nursing Adrian and had to eliminate all dairy from my diet, I thought about cooking with my pumped milk, but there were two problems. 1) I couldn't get over the "ick" factor and 2) I couldn't pump enough to do anything with it. I realize now that it's not icky at all. It doesn't taste any different when you cook with it and only the consistency of the food is a bit different. If I'd known all the different things you can do with breastmilk back then, I might have tried a little harder so I' could have some decent mashed potatoes! Soymilk and margarine just don't cut it for me.

ETA: I found a pic in my phone. I took it when I was still trying to figure out what the heck was up with that stuff! I was going to post it on my BD group so maybe they could tell me. Then I figured it out and forgot I had the pic.


The butter on the top was about a centimeter thick. That's 6 ounces of milk, pears, carrots, and oatmeal.