Just when I thought the culture of running I could no longer invent excuses to go out and devour kilometers, the algorithm has decided to merge training with cooking recipes. To put you in situation, I was doing scroll calmly on Instagram and suddenly I came across what I consider the last barrier to fitness: runners that make butter while they run. They have named him the churning and burning (something like “stirring and burning”) or, simply, the butter runs.
Can it be real? Apparently, yes. It all started in February of this year with American content creator Libby Cope and her partner, Jacob Arnold. In the video, Cope asks a simple question: “We Googled it, and as far as we knew, there were no previous runners who had successfully made butter. So we said… ‘Okay, shall we be the first?'” In it reel She is seen pouring a carton of liquid cream and salt into an airtight bag. “You might be wondering why,” Cope says to the camera. “The real question is: why not?”
Since then, the phenomenon has exploded globally. A quick look at Instagram shows us an army of runners imitating the feat on accounts like saral.fit, margot_outdoor, lib_claire, rachlzw o alexladikoff.
gonzo journalism
Faced with such an avalanche of content, in WorldOfSoftware We couldn’t sit idly by, but we didn’t want to get dirty either. So we turn to our hero without a cape: my partner Javier Lacort. Javier, always willing to sacrifice his sports team for investigative journalism, accepted the challenge without blinking: “I’ll do it,” he said. We owe him, at the very least, an eternal breakfast.
The conditions of the experiment were the following: Javier went out into the street to run 20 kilometers with an entire 500 ml brick of liquid cream on his back. The weather: clear skies, 51% humidity and a temperature of 13ºC, although with a treacherous thermal sensation of 8ºC.
My partner opted for a pragmatic and very much our approach. While American pioneers recommend using airtight bags Ziploc heavy-duty, Javier simply poured the liquid cream into a regular plastic shopping bag. With a few secure snap knots, he placed it directly into the pocket of his hydration vest. The goal was to see if the force of the impact over 20 kilometers would be enough to whip cream.
But, before seeing the result, what does science say? How does running turn a liquid into a spreadable solid?
As detailed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the principle is pure physics: the constant churning process causes the fat globules present in the cream to collide, group together and end up separating from the remaining liquid, known as whey. Come on, the same thing that nomads did centuries ago when galloping with milk sacks hanging from their pack animals, only now the pack animal is wearing carbon fiber slippers.
Today, the runner It’s the human mixer. However, the results vary greatly. Getting butter depends on several factors: the distance (most run between 5 and 10 kilometers), the intensity of the stride (the more bounce, the better) and, fundamentally, the percentage of fat in the cream used.
The process and the verdict
Javier completed his 20 kilometers and, after leaving his vest on a park bench with the air of having survived a true dairy odyssey, the verdict was clear. Upon opening the bag, he confessed: “It smelled wonderful, honestly.”
In the images that he gave us of the process, the evolution can be clearly seen. After 20 kilometers of impact against the asphalt, the macro photos reveal that, without becoming a solid and consistent block of butter, the cream had been whipped and presented a lumpy and thick texture.
Why did Javier get a thick whipped cream texture instead of a block of butter like those on TikTok, despite having run a considerable distance?
The answer is in the weather. The scientific magazine Scientific American has the key: temperature is crucial. If it is too cold, the fat molecules harden and fail to group together to form solid clumps; if it’s too hot, the mixture turns into soup. The ideal temperature is room temperature. With a thermal sensation of 8ºC, Javier had the thermometer against him. In fact, other runners who attempted the challenge on snowy days failed in the same way.
Given what has been seen, for those who want to replicate it, the pioneers leave some vital advice. Libby Cope recommends running for at least an hour, using cream with 35% fat and, as a rule of thumb, always use an airtight “double bag” to prevent your back from ending up looking like a clandestine cheese factory. Other users recommend loosening the hydration vest a little so that the bag bounces more, or choosing routes with hills, stairs or uneven terrain.
And the vital question: is this edible?
The short answer is yes. In fact, eating it has become the official goal of the race. The challenge has generated a small post-workout ritual: open the container to check if there is butter and spread the fresh result on a piece of bread as a snack recuperator. It’s the perfect ending to the social media video.
Culinary creativity has not taken long to appear. One of the runners, Irene Choi, is no longer satisfied with the basic recipe, but instead practices the habit stacking (stack habits) creating flavored butters. They add sea salt, herbs de Provence, garlic or even honey before going for a run. Choi went so far as to make a “honey butter and corn juice” that he called “an excellent use of my time.”
From a more cynical (and brilliant) perspective, columnist Emma Beddington reflects on The Guardian about the phenomenon: “The couple (Libby Cope and Jacob Arnold) now have more butter than they know what to do with. Do they even know how much butter costs these days? Let them sell it!” Beddington jokes that this trend fits perfectly into the modern era, combining animal fats, strenuous physical activity and “completely unhinged” behavior.
The next barrier: bike and cheese?
What started as a joke in Oregon is mutating into unexpected corners. The Guardian baptizes it as the possible beginning of a “culinary CrossFit”, wondering if we will soon see people kneading bread with their fists to train the upper body or stomping fruit in the cool-down phase to get a smoothie.
And they are not misguided. Faced with the low temperatures in Calgary in Canada, runner Jonny Arnott decided to take advantage of the polar cold that ruined butter to make ice cream while running. Irene Choi herself confessed that her followers are already demanding that her next jog be used to make yogurt or cheese.
He butter run It is, in essence, the natural evolution of the culture of running mixed with virality. If before fashion was coffee run (running for 40 minutes with the sole objective of finishing at your favorite coffee shop to socialize), now you drink your coffee at home with the toast that you yourself have whipped with your lower back.
What is the next barrier? It will probably not be long before we see the first cyclist tying a sack of curd to the frame of his bicycle, looking for the worst potholes on the road to demonstrate that, with a good medium plate, you can get home with a cured Manchego cheese under your arm. Time to time.
Image | Javier Lacort
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