Butter is Good!

[Kitchen Chatters]

Real butter is not that bad if consumed in moderation. Stay away from margarine though. I read that it is made from the same compounds as plastic.

 

[RPCookin]

Real butter is not that bad if consumed in moderation. Stay away from margarine though. I read that it is made from the same compounds as plastic.

Butter is made from animal fat. Margarine is made from vegetable oil (fat). Most plastics are made from petroleum. They are all organic compounds, but they are definitely not the same thing!

 

[Addie]

Raising my kids, margarine was often the choice due to cost. Then I started to buy butter. I have never gone back.

Margarine can be very difficult to bake with. Because of the high oil content, it tends to change the whole chemical structure of the recipe. If margarine is all a person can afford and wants to bake from scratch, I would suggest going to the site of the brand of margarine and look up recipes from their test kitchens. Some sites don't even have any recipes for baking, such as cakes, cookies, etc.

When making chocolate chip cookies, there is a vast difference. Those made with margarine will spread out to being real thin. Butter, they come out of the oven soft and chewy. You can not substitute margarine for real butter.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Butter is made from animal fat. Margarine is made from vegetable oil (fat). Most plastics are made from petroleum. They are all organic compounds, but they are definitely not the same thing!

+1
I couldn't have said it any better. Concise and accurate you are. Nice.
One more thing though, butter tastes much, much better than petroleum.

Oh, and for those who don't know, we are made from organic compounds as well.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[skilletlicker]

Oh, and for those who don't know, we are made from organic compounds as well.

I forget stuff learnt in school. Isn't organic compounds a class of chemical compounds. I thought chemicals wuz bad for you.

I try not to jump on bandwagons. In general, I'm convinced monounsaturated fats are healthier than saturated fats. But I still buy butter. Store it in the freezer and move one stick at a time into the fridge where it lasts a long time. Use a lot more olive oil by comparison.

I also save and sparingly use fats from beef, chicken, pork, and bacon.

 

[medtran49]

Sometimes margarine works better than butter though. I have a family cookie recipe that has been made at Christmas for as long as I can remember. Ingredients are margarine, flour, chopped pecans, 10x sugar, vanilla and a bit of water. Shaped into balls, baked and then 2 rolls in 10x sugar. Got the bright idea 1 year after I stopped using margarine to make them with butter. Epic FAIL. They didn't keep shape and tasted nowhere near the same.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I forget stuff learnt in school. Isn't organic compounds a class of chemical compounds. I thought chemicals wuz bad for you.

I try not to jump on bandwagons. In general, I'm convinced monounsaturated fats are healthier than saturated fats. But I still buy butter. Store it in the freezer and move one stick at a time into the fridge where it lasts a long time. Use a lot more olive oil by comparison.

I also save and sparingly use fats from beef, chicken, pork, and bacon.

Organic means carbon based. We are a carbon based life form. And as far as chemicals are concerned, every substance on this planet, and in this universe is a chemical. Water is a chemical compound and has a couple of chemical names, i.e. dihydrogen oxide, water, and oxidane. In chemistry, it is known as a universal solvent as it dissolves most other chemicals, such as mercury, lead, iron, sulpher, etc. It also dissolves chemical compounds such as salt (sodium chloride), and potassium chloride, a different kind of salt.

Margarine is made from plant oils. It is bonded with hydrogen, hydrogenation, to transform it from a liquid to a solid.

The way I see it, the things made from nature are what our bodies were made to utilize. Things made by humans are imperfect because our knowledge is imperfect, and is tempered by the desire to make a profit from what we create, good or bad.

To sum this all up, keep the margarine and pass the butter please.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[emmaline]

I don't use any margarine at all these days and much prefer butter despite the cholesterol problem.
IMO there's a risk with everything we eat in one way and another so moderation in all things!

(Do wish I could remember that when I get a chocolate urge.. )

 

[Addie]

I don't use any margarine at all these days and much prefer butter despite the cholesterol problem.
IMO there's a risk with everything we eat in one way and another so moderation in all things!

(Do wish I could remember that when I get a chocolate urge.. )

Good news for you. They are finding some very interesting benefits to eating chocolate. Eat away!

 

[skilletlicker]

I don't use any margarine at all these days and much prefer butter despite the cholesterol problem.
IMO there's a risk with everything we eat in one way and another so moderation in all things!

(Do wish I could remember that when I get a chocolate urge.. )

Good news for you. They are finding some very interesting benefits to eating chocolate. Eat away!

Since chocolate has cocoa butter, why don't we fry our eggs in melted Hershey bars?

 

[Addie]

Since chocolate has cocoa butter, why don't we fry our eggs in melted Hershey bars?

That would give a whole new recipe at the least to Chocolate Eggs!

 

[Zagut]

....

 

[RPCookin]

I don't get the hate for margarine. I don't think that I've ever been in a household where it wasn't used for everyday, both for cooking and on the table. We always have a Country Crock in the fridge. People I know usually reserve butter for special dishes or occasions.

 

[Addie]

I don't get the hate for margarine. I don't think that I've ever been in a household where it wasn't used for everyday, both for cooking and on the table. We always have a Country Crock in the fridge. People I know usually reserve butter for special dishes or occasions.

My mother told me no one is more special than the members of your family. As a result once a week and special days we got to set the table with the best china, tablecloth and silverware. If they didn't get put away right after washing them, they got used again the next day.

I don't hate margarine, but I prefer food created naturally. Not a compound of chemicals. At the same time, I do understand the financial need for margarine. Butter can be very pricey. That is why I store up on it when it is on sale. One time Cabot Butter was actually cheaper than the house brand. My favorite brand of butter is Cabot's. I stocked up on it like the cows were going to close down any minute. I had more butter in my freezer than meat.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

I don't get the hate for margarine. I don't think that I've ever been in a household where it wasn't used for everyday, both for cooking and on the table. We always have a Country Crock in the fridge. People I know usually reserve butter for special dishes or occasions.

Dairy farmers in my family, always had butter, except for my younger years when Dad was a student at University. I don't use margarine because they are made with "vegetable" oils...many of those oils are inflammatory and wreck havoc with my arthritis.

 

[Cheryl J]

I've used butter for decades - I can't remember the last time I bought margarine. I wouldn't begrudge anyone for using it, though - heck, my youngest daughter always has a tub of Country Crock in the fridge and I'm not sure if she's ever bought butter.

It's not that I'm so much into 'natural' foods - I have pre-packaged foods in the pantry with the best of 'em. I just LOVE the taste of butter. IMO there's nothing better than a spread of slightly cool butter on a slice of warm freshly toasted bread. If I want oil there's a few kinds in my pantry, but for taste and texture it's just gotta be butter.

And butter isn't really THAT much more expensive than margarine, if you watch for the sales and stock up.

 

[GotGarlic]

I've used butter for decades - I can't remember the last time I bought margarine. I wouldn't begrudge anyone for using it, though - heck, my youngest daughter always has a tub of Country Crock in the fridge and I'm not sure if she's ever bought butter.

It's not that I'm so much into 'natural' foods - I have pre-packaged foods in the pantry with the best of 'em. I just LOVE the taste of butter. IMO there's nothing better than a spread of slightly cool butter on a slice of warm freshly toasted bread. If I want oil there's a few kinds in my pantry, but for taste and texture it's just gotta be butter.

And butter isn't really THAT much more expensive than margarine, if you watch for the sales and stock up.

+1. I love butter and I'm worth it

 

[Andy M.]

When I was on my own during and after my divorce, I switched back to butter. It has stayed with me through thick and thin.

 

[skilletlicker]

I don't get the hate for margarine. I don't think that I've ever been in a household where it wasn't used for everyday, both for cooking and on the table. We always have a Country Crock in the fridge. People I know usually reserve butter for special dishes or occasions.

My parents became margarine users in the 30s and 40s. As a child in the 50s and 60s, I don't remember ever seeing butter in the house.

Among my parent's best friends was a wholesale margarine salesman. His wife refused to allow margarine in her house and would only use butter. Somehow that became a topic of conversation every time we ate at their house. I think they were the only people in my parent's circle of friends who didn't mostly or exclusively use margarine. It was one of the reasons they all said she was such an odd duck.

I moved out in the late 60s. Don't remember when I last bought margarine. Probably sometime in the 80's.
Neither margarine nor butter is healthy food. Butter is all saturated fat and margarine has partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and possibly trans fat. I've never seen a butter ad that said our butter tastes almost as good as margarine.

I use less than 2 lbs. of butter a year. The rest of my fats are vegetable oils, mostly olive oil, or reserved animal fats.

Food used to be a cultural thing. We mostly liked what we were used to and grew up with. Nowadays, if we aren't careful, we like what the marketing people tell us to. They have become sneaky son of a guns. Deceptive misrepresentations of science are among their favorite tools.

 

[GotGarlic]

Neither margarine nor butter is healthy food. Butter is all saturated fat and margarine has partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and possibly trans fat. I've never seen a butter ad that said our butter tastes almost as good as margarine.

I use less than 2 lbs. of butter a year. The rest of my fats are vegetable oils, mostly olive oil, or reserved animal fats.

Food used to be a cultural thing. We mostly liked what we were used to and grew up with. Nowadays, if we aren't careful, we like what the marketing people tell us to. They have become sneaky son of a guns. Deceptive misrepresentations of science are among their favorite tools.

Butter is not all fat; it also contains water, protein, vitamins A and D and potassium. I'm not claiming it's a health food, but as with so many things, it's fine in moderation. I think your reserved animal fats are pretty much just fat, though.

I wrote a paper in college about the psychology of marketing. I'm not easily taken in by that