Ghee is yellow when it is made from the milk of cows eating fresh green forage, because the forage carries beta-carotene, a yellow pigment that passes into milk fat. Buffalo ghee is white, which is usually explained by buffalo turning most of that pigment into colourless vitamin A, and ghee that has turned white and grainy in the jar has simply set as its fat crystallised. None of these colours, on its own, tells you whether ghee is pure.
Ghee colour is one of the first things people judge it by, and one of the least reliable. A jar of cow ghee can be golden in one season and pale in another, or white and grainy on a cold shelf, without anything changing in how it was made.
At a glance
- Beta-carotene makes up 75 to 90 per cent of the carotenoids in cow milk, according to a 2021 review in Foods, and it travels with the fat into butter and ghee.
- In Dutch bulk-tank milk, the same review reports, total carotenoids fell from 24.5 to 16.8 micrograms per 100 grams between the summer and winter feeding periods, about 31 per cent.
- Buffalo ghee measured a yellowness index of 5 to 22 against 74 to 89 for cow ghee in a 2022 study at the National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal.
- Ghee that turns white and grainy in a cool kitchen has set: the National Dairy Development Board's ghee bulletin describes ghee at room temperature crystallising into an oily layer, a granular semi-solid and hard flakes.
- Colour cannot prove purity: FSSAI's standard bars added colour in ghee's raw material, yet in the Karnal study cow ghee blended with up to 20 per cent buffalo ghee stayed within pure cow ghee's yellowness range.
Why is cow ghee yellow?
Cow ghee is yellow because of carotenoids, plant pigments that cows take in with their feed and carry into the fat of their milk. Mammals cannot make carotenoids; they come only from the diet. Beta-carotene is the main one in cow milk, making up 75 to 90 per cent of its carotenoids.
A 2021 review of carotenoids in milk, published in Foods, sets out the chain. Carotenoids sit in the lipid fraction of milk and contribute the characteristic yellow hue of dairy products; lutein, the other main carotenoid in milk, is present at lower levels. Because the pigment travels with the fat, it is concentrated when cream is churned into butter and the butter is clarified into ghee. The review also notes that only a small share of the beta-carotene a cow eats reaches her milk, so the colour of ghee is a faint signal of what the cow ate, not a measure of it.
Why does ghee colour change with the season?
Ghee colour changes with the season because the cows' diet changes. Fresh forage is the richest source of carotenoids for cows; preserved forage carries less. When cows move from grazing to stored feed, the beta-carotene in their milk falls, and the butter and ghee made from it turn paler.
The review cites a study of bulk-tank milk in the Netherlands in which winter feeding cut beta-carotene by 20 per cent. Total carotenoids in raw milk were 16.8 micrograms per 100 grams after the winter period, against 24.5 after the summer months. That is a fall of 7.7 micrograms, or about 31 per cent (7.7 ÷ 24.5). French bulk-tank milk had higher beta-carotene and lutein in summer, with a stronger yellow colour, and beta-carotene peaked in September.
Two cautions keep this honest. First, the review points out that in most of these studies the effect of season is interchangeable with the effect of diet: cows are housed indoors on silage and concentrates in winter and graze outdoors in spring and summer. It is the feed, not the calendar, doing the work. Second, these studies are European; where cattle graze elsewhere, the golden months follow whenever fresh forage is most plentiful. Stored feed varies too: the review reports that grass silage carried more carotenoids than hay, and that switching cows from silage to hay quickly lowered the beta-carotene in their milk.
Why is buffalo ghee white?
Buffalo ghee is white because it carries almost none of the yellow that colours cow ghee: a 2022 laboratory study measured it as far whiter and less yellow. The usual explanation is that buffalo convert most of the beta-carotene they eat into vitamin A, which is colourless, before it reaches the milk.
The conversion explanation comes from a 2017 study in PLoS ONE that used fluorescence spectroscopy to tell cow milk from buffalo milk: it found a signal linked to beta-carotene in cow milk that was absent in buffalo milk, and signals linked to vitamin A in buffalo milk. The National Dairy Development Board's bulletin on ghee manufacture adds, citing K. T. Achaya, that buffalo ghee lacks carotenoids but contains the pigments biliverdin and bilirubin, which give it a greenish tint.
The picture is not quite as tidy as "cows have carotene, buffalo do not". A 2019 study in the Journal of Dairy Science that measured beta-carotene in milk from Indian cattle and buffalo breeds still detected it in buffalo milk, only slightly lower on average, and one buffalo breed, Jafarabadi, was higher than most of the cattle breeds tested. What is not in dispute is the end result in the jar. Researchers at the National Dairy Research Institute in Karnal measured the colour of pure cow and buffalo ghee, both made by the creamery butter method. Their figures, from the study's abstract:
| Colour measure | Pure cow ghee | Pure buffalo ghee |
|---|---|---|
| Yellowness (b value) | 59.68 to 79.31 | 1.39 to 9.61 |
| Yellowness index | 74.25 to 88.92 | 5.21 to 22.46 |
| Whiteness index | 16.07 to 28.85 | 68.74 to 84.61 |
| Lightness (L value) | 70.17 to 81.56 | 71.89 to 83.71 |
The ranges for yellowness and whiteness do not overlap at all, while lightness is similar: the two ghees are about equally bright, but one is yellow and the other is not. We compare the two in more detail in cow ghee versus buffalo ghee.
Why does ghee turn white in the jar?
Usually because it has set. Ghee is a mixture of fats with different melting points, and as a jar cools the high-melting fats crystallise out as grains; in a cold kitchen the whole jar can firm up. The grain and the firmness are the fat crystallising, and they go again when the ghee is warmed.
The National Dairy Development Board's bulletin on ghee manufacture describes what a jar does at room temperature: it crystallises into three fractions, an oily layer, a granular semi-solid at the bottom, and hard flakes floating on the surface. A 2011 NDRI Karnal thesis on ghee granulation puts the mechanism in one sentence: granulation in ghee is due to the crystallisation of high-melting triglycerides. It also cites a figure that about 95 per cent of milk fat melts at body temperature, which is why set ghee melts on warm food.
Buffalo ghee sets harder than cow ghee. The NDDB bulletin gives the figures: buffalo ghee holds 8.7 grams of high-melting triglycerides per 100 grams against 4.9 in cow ghee, because it has more of the long-chain saturated fatty acids palmitic and stearic. Setting is not spoilage: the thesis notes that ghee eventually spoils mainly through an oxidised flavour, so grain on its own is not a sign that ghee has gone off. For how the grain forms and how to bring it back, see what makes ghee danedar; for the layers and the storage rules, see how to store ghee.
Is pale cow ghee a sign of poor quality?
No. Pale cow ghee most often reflects feed: cows eating preserved forage and concentrates rather than fresh green forage, as happens in winter or when they are housed. That changes the beta-carotene in the fat, not whether the ghee is genuine. Pale ghee and golden ghee can both be pure.
Feed is not the only factor; the 2021 review notes that breed has an effect too. The reverse also holds: a deep yellow is not a mark of quality in itself. It says, at most, that the milk fat carried a fair amount of carotenoids, and nothing about how the ghee was made, stored or blended. From a producer whose cattle graze, batches made at different times of year will look different.
Can the colour of ghee prove it is pure?
No. Colour can be added to a fat, and blends can fall within the normal colour range of pure ghee. In the Karnal study, cow ghee mixed with up to 20 per cent buffalo ghee kept lightness, redness and yellowness readings within the pure cow ghee range. Only laboratory tests can show what is in it.
The FSSAI standard for milk fat products, which covers ghee, says the raw material "shall be free from added flavour, colour or preservative". Nothing in the shade itself tells you whether a yellow came from grass or from an additive.
The same Karnal study shows how laboratories do the job instead. Most of its measures, including the standard yellowness readings, could not separate pure cow ghee from cow ghee containing up to 20 per cent buffalo ghee. Two could: the whiteness index and the Kirschner value, a chemical measure of the fat. Even the useful colour measure needed an instrument, not an eye.
What can ghee colour tell you, then?
Colour is a clue about the animal, what it ate and how cold the jar is, not a verdict on the jar. It can suggest whether the milk came from cows or buffalo and whether the cows were on fresh forage, but it cannot rule out blending or added colour. How to read it:
- A deep yellow cow ghee suggests milk from cows on plenty of fresh green forage. It does not prove the ghee is unblended or uncoloured.
- A pale cow ghee suggests winter feeding or housed cows on preserved forage. It is not, in itself, a sign of adulteration.
- A white ghee is most often buffalo ghee, but very pale cow ghee exists, so check the label.
- A jar that has turned white and grainy has set in the cold. Judge the colour when it is melted.
- A change in colour between jars from a grazing producer is expected as the seasons and feed change; a colour that never changes is worth a question, though a steady year-round feed is an innocent answer.
For the checks that do mean something, see how to tell if ghee is pure. Himdhara's ghee comes from free-grazing Badri cattle in the Uttarakhand hills, and every jar carries a batch code tied to a report on the lab reports page. Whoever you buy from, a batch report tells you more than the colour of the jar.
The short version
Cow ghee is yellow because of beta-carotene from the cows' feed, and most golden when they eat fresh green forage; it turns paler on winter or indoor feeding. Buffalo ghee is white, usually put down to buffalo converting most of the beta-carotene they eat into colourless vitamin A. Ghee that has turned white and grainy in the jar has set, because its high-melting fats crystallise; that is texture, not spoilage. Colour cannot prove purity: it can be added, and modest blends stay within the normal range, so judge ghee by a batch-coded laboratory report.
Sources
Further reading behind the figures above. Himdhara's own numbers — yields, batch results — come from our production records and the batch reports on the lab reports page.
- Conboy Stephenson R, Ross RP, Stanton C (2021). Carotenoids in Milk and the Potential for Dairy Based Functional Foods. Foods.
- Mor S, Sharma V, Arora S, Minz PS (2022). Physico-chemical and color parameters to distinguish cow ghee from buffalo ghee. Journal of Food Science and Technology.
- Ullah R, Khan S, Ali H, Bilal M, Saleem M (2017). Identification of cow and buffalo milk based on Beta carotene and vitamin-A concentration using fluorescence spectroscopy. PLoS ONE.
- National Dairy Development Board (2020). Technology of Ghee manufacturing. Technews No. 99.
- Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Food Product Standards, 2.1 Dairy Products and Analogues (2.1.8, Standard for Milk Fat Products). FSSAI.