Kefir and buttermilk

[cmom80]

What is the difference between kefir and buttermilk?

[Taedareth]

Kefir is made with a starter culture (kefir grains - which are gelatinous blobs). They impart probiotics to the milk and turn it into the consistency of yogurt.

Buttermilk does not contain any probiotics except the ones that are naturally in milk, if you're using raw milk. The way you get buttermilk is you skim the cream off your farm-fresh whole milk. Put this cream in your butter churn (or blender) and agitate until the butterfat clumps into butter. Then you scoop out the butter and the leftover milk is buttermilk. Traditionally the cream was allowed to sit at room temperature until it soured, so therefore the buttermilk was basically sour, skimmed milk. (But when I make butter at home I use fresh, unsoured cream, so my buttermilk tastes like regular skim milk.)