Back to butter

What one now spreads on the breakfast toast seems to have become controversial! When I was young, my whole family used butter. Margarine was only used for baking. Later, as my mother became aware of her high cholesterol condition, she used low-fat spreads and most of us followed her example as we didn’t mind the taste and the spreadable convenience was appealing. Also at that time, butter was demonised for being less healthy and saturated fats were considered to contribute to high cholesterol -- so we thought we were doing ourselves a favour.

In the early 1990s I had Lurpack Spreadable on my toast and sandwiches for a couple of years or so, but eventually I settled on Flora spread and used that almost exclusively until June 2019. Given a choice, I prefer the taste of butter and with increasing years I try to think more carefully about what I am consuming.

Well, I probably would have continued to be a loyal Flora customer for many more years, but in the spring of 2019 the (new) manufacturers changed the composition of Flora Original. (Huh, original?) The 45 percent fat content with buttermilk changed to 70 percent fat and 100 percent plant goodness. (Trying to get the vegan vote?) The taste changed subtly — to more like butter — and I found it less easy to spread straight from the fridge. When I looked at the list of ingredients I was surprised to see that palm oil was mentioned. (It turns out that the old recipe used it too.) So why wasn’t I just using butter?

I started to query the Internet about low-fat spreads, saturated fats and butter. I was intrigued to find that the link between saturated fats and cholesterol was inconclusive. At least one person who seemed to be well-informed and knew the science, said that butter is a more natural product than processed low-fat spreads, and is likely to be better for you if the cows have been grazed on grass. Palm oil gets a really bad rap for what the expanding plantations are doing to the rainforests of south east Asia — and by extension, to the planet. Some people are not very happy about this, especially the impact that it is having on the gentle orang-utan.

Therefore, I decided that I was going to support UK producers and reduce my consumption of palm oil. (Can I hope that this might also save valuable British farmland from naughty politicians and developers?) I am back on butter now, but I won’t rule out the possibility of another low-fat spread if it scores well on the taste and ingredients, and the science checks out.

As for saving the planet, eliminating Homo sapiens seems to be the only long term solution! We have been gradually exterminating all other species for hundreds, if not thousands of years. (We have not done so well with our own kind either.) It must be in our genetic makeup to destroy any threat or competition. So when is the next big asteroid strike due? It worked for the dinosaurs...