Most Australians have never heard of Anhydrous Milk Fat (AMF).
Yet it's one of the most common dairy ingredients in the world, and it's also one of the biggest sources of confusion in the ghee aisle.
If you've been following my recent articles, you'll know I've been talking about food transparency and asking better questions about what's on our supermarket shelves.
One question keeps coming up.
"What is AMF?"
It's a great question.
Because before I started OMGhee, I'd never heard of it either.
Like most people, I assumed every jar of ghee started the same way.
Butter.
A pot.
Slow simmering.
Hours of gentle cooking.
Browning and caramelising the milk solids.
Filtering them away.
Pour it into a jar.
Done.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
As I started researching the industry, I discovered there are different manufacturing methods behind products sold as ghee, and one term kept appearing over and over again.
AMF.
So let's unpack what it actually is.
What is AMF?
AMF stands for Anhydrous Milk Fat.
That sounds complicated, but it really isn't.
"Anhydrous" simply means without water.
Milk fat is exactly what it sounds like, the fat naturally found in milk.
AMF is produced by separating the fat from cream in a dairy factory using specialised equipment. Almost all of the water and milk solids are removed, leaving behind a concentrated butterfat that's incredibly stable and easy to transport, store and use in food manufacturing.
It's widely used throughout the food industry in products like chocolate, bakery products, ice cream and processed dairy foods.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with AMF as a food ingredient.
But let's be clear.
AMF is not traditional butter ghee.
It was developed to provide a stable butterfat ingredient for large-scale food manufacturing, and it does that job extremely well.
Is AMF the same as traditional butter ghee?
No.
They're closely related, but they're not the same thing.
The biggest difference isn't what they finish as.
It's how they get there.
(Insert infographic here)
Traditional butter ghee starts with butter.
The butter is slowly cooked for hours.
As it cooks, the water evaporates and the milk solids slowly brown before they're filtered away.
That browning process is incredibly important.
It's what creates the rich, nutty aroma, deeper golden colour and distinctive flavour that traditional ghee is famous for.
AMF takes a completely different path.
Instead of slowly cooking butter, the milk fat is separated mechanically during dairy processing.
There is no slow cooking.
There is no caramelisation of the milk solids.
There isn't a pot gently simmering away for hours.
Because the butter isn't slowly cooked, it doesn't undergo the same cooking transformations that occur during traditional ghee making.
The milk solids are simply removed during processing.
The result is a concentrated butter oil that can then be heated, poured into jars and sold as ghee or clarified butter.
Both products may look similar sitting on the supermarket shelf.
But they haven't been made the same way, and the traditional cooking process simply hasn't occurred.
Why does the process matter?
For me, this is the most important part of the conversation.
When someone buys a jar labelled ghee, what are they expecting?
I think most people imagine butter slowly simmering in a pot.
Hours of careful cooking.
The milk solids browning until they develop that beautiful nutty flavour.
Then being filtered away, leaving behind golden ghee.
That's certainly what I imagined.
It's also how traditional butter ghee has been made for generations.
I don't believe most Australians realise that some products labelled as ghee may simply begin with industrially produced AMF that's heated, jarred and labelled.
Whether you think that's acceptable or not isn't really the point.
The point is that consumers deserve to understand the difference.
Does cooking butter change more than just the flavour?
Yes.
Traditional butter ghee isn't simply butter with the milk solids removed.
It's cooked.
As the butter slowly simmers, water evaporates and the milk solids brown before they're filtered away.
That cooking process creates the flavour, aroma and colour that traditional ghee is known for.
But the changes don't stop there.
The cooking process also changes the composition of the butter. As water is removed and the milk solids caramelise, the chemistry of the finished product changes too. Researchers have identified changes in naturally occurring fatty acids and other compounds during the clarification process.
For thousands of years, traditional cultures have valued ghee not only as a cooking fat, but also as a food with medicinal significance. In Ayurvedic medicine, for example, ghee has been used for centuries as part of traditional dietary and therapeutic practices.
Modern science is beginning to explore why traditional cultures valued ghee so highly. Researchers continue to investigate how the cooking process changes the composition of ghee and whether those changes contribute to its unique properties.
Whatever future research reveals, one thing is certain.
If the butter was never slowly cooked, those traditional cooking changes never occurred.
Why does OMGhee start with butter?
People often ask why we don't simply begin with AMF.
The answer is simple.
Because we're not just making butter oil. We're making traditional butter ghee.
For us, the flavour, the aroma, the tradition and the unique properties that develop during slow cooking are the whole point.
Every batch of OMGhee starts with certified organic Australian grass-fed butter.
We slowly simmer it for around seven hours.
The water evaporates.
The milk solids naturally brown.
Only then are they carefully filtered away.
It's slower.
It has a lower yield.
It costs more.
But that's the process we chose because we believe traditional butter ghee should actually be made from butter.
How can you tell the difference?
Here are a few things worth looking for.
Read the ingredient list.
Traditional butter ghee will usually list butter as its ingredient.
Some products may list Anhydrous Milk Fat (AMF).
Read the country-of-origin statement.
Don't just look at the front label.
Take a few seconds to read the country-of-origin panel on the back.
Ask questions.
A company should be happy to explain:
- Where their ingredients come from.
- Whether they begin with butter or AMF.
- How their product is made.
If they can't answer those questions, I'd be asking why.
Don't judge by price alone.
Price doesn't automatically equal quality.
But traditional butter ghee starts with butter, loses around 20% of its weight during cooking, takes hours to produce and then needs to be filtered, tested and packed.
If one jar is dramatically cheaper than another, it's worth asking how that's possible.
My final thoughts
This article isn't about saying AMF shouldn't exist.
It has an important place in mass food manufacturing.
It's about transparency.
Personally, I believe that when most Australians buy a product labelled ghee, they reasonably expect it has actually been made by slowly cooking butter, browning the milk solids and then filtering them away.
If a product has instead begun life as industrially produced Anhydrous Milk Fat that has simply been heated and packaged, I think consumers deserve to know that too.
Not because one ingredient is "good" and the other is "bad".
Because transparency matters.
Once you understand the difference, you can make an informed choice.
And that's really what this whole series is about.
Helping Australians understand what's actually in the jar before they decide which one belongs in their kitchen.
