I was so excited to read in the Los Angeles Times (you can read the full article here) the other day that one of my favourite things is back in fashion! What is it you ask? It’s (drumroll please)…. butter!

Yep. Butter. I (think) I eat well. I’ve been a vegetarian forever. I try to eat enough leafy green vegetables and good sources of (non animal) protein. I don’t use sugar and I don’t use salt (due to a kidney condition), so my butter is naturally unsalted. 

No matter how many years have gone by, I’ve refused to give up butter. I like it on my toast. I cannot stand margarine or any derivatives that pretend to emulate butter and those things are full of synthetic products anyway. So I’ve always put butter on my toast (or crumpets or muffins) in the morning and while I usually cook with olive oil, sometimes I use butter for certain things, especially if I’m making mushrooms on toast with HP Sauce. it’s a British thing. Delicious. Try it. 

 

So imagine my delight when the LA Times had the following headline and subhead on its front page (it was a slow news day obviously). 

Trans fats backlash pushes U.S. butter consumption to a 40-year-high

Butter’s growing popularity — consumption has risen 25% in the last decade — coincides with more understanding about the health hazards of its processed counterparts.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I could have told you this YEARS ago. 

Other gems in the article include: 

Trans fats are vegetable oils that have been blended with hydrogen to boost shelf life and reproduce the qualities of butter or lard. But research shows the ingredient raises levels of LDL cholesterol, also known as bad cholesterol. Trans fats consumption impairs levels of the better HDL cholesterol, which helps prevent heart disease.

Yes, the article goes on to say that butter is still a saturated fat and it’s still not a “health food.” But as A. A. Milne would rightly state is his delicious poem The King’s Breakfast: All I want is a bit of butter on my bread!

That’s all I usually use it for anyway. And it’s much better than margarine. So yay! Butter is back in fashion. Luckily I’m not a trend following person and have kept butter as a part of my life and have yet to fall down a “foodie” rabbit hole. Food trends – like all trends – come and go. But butter will stay. Which reminds me of that great British butter commercial  I loved as a kid in the late 1970s. It went something like this: 

What’s the natural food you spread on bread and scones and toast?

B-U-Double T-E-R

What’s the natural food that makes your veggies taste the most?
B-U-Double T-E-R

And when it comes to cooking

The other stuff doesn’t get a look in

Because of 

B-U-Double T-E-R

And that spells butter

B-U-Double T-E-R

A natural food!

Anyone else remember that commercial?