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> Because the butter used for the Iowa State Fair's cow sculpture is recycled for many years, the cooler where it's made has a funky smell that most fairgoers w
by adzm 1y ago
> Because the butter used for the Iowa State Fair's cow sculpture is recycled for many years, the cooler where it's made has a funky smell that most fairgoers would never know about on the other side of the display glass.
- Freak_NL 1y agoThe fact that they recycle the butter for about a decade is reassuring though. A full cow worth of butter yearly just sounds wasteful, but this approach scales that back to a tenth of a cow.
- grues-dinner 1y agoOne cow is not so bad in comparison to the erstwhile EU butter mountain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter_mountain Or the US cheese caverns: https://modernfarmer.com/2022/05/cheese-caves-missouri/ https://modernfarmer.com/2022/05/cheese-caves-missouri/, which also, as of 2022, contain about an Ford-class aircraft carrier and a half of butter.
- maxerickson 1y agoIt's 600 pounds of butter. US per capita consumption is about 6.5 pounds per year. The definition of caring about it because you can see it.
- grues-dinner 1y agoSay $5/lb (retail price, surely they don't pay this): $3000 for 600lb. Using cost as a proxy for the intrinsic value of things, I think just the glass in a cow-sized display case will be more than that, let alone with a refrigeration system built into it. And if we want to go further, think of the embedded costs of the building it's in, and then include staffing, energy, maintenance, etc that's being "burned" by this exhibit!
- bombcar 1y agoI’m honestly surprised they reuse it. The amounts of butter you see on even a smaller dairy farm is tremendous.
- recursive 1y agoProbably a PR thing because concerned citizens keep asking about it.