Butter or spread?

[Moxi]

ohh that furry feeling to the roof of your mouth after fish and chips fried in dripping - now THAT is a memory of much fondness

I think the problem with modern advice on foods is that generally its provided by people representing the vested interest of big business. So you cant take things at face value and need to apply yourself in most things these days.

That said even the NHS flip flops on medical health and wellbeing - I am father to Seven children, most are within a 18 months of each other in age and every time we left the hospital with the newest child we would be told a different set of acceptable things for the baby - most of which contradicted the guidance we received not 18 months before! The best ones being, must wear a hat in the cot, never cover the heads with a bed hat in the cot, swaddle them for comfort - never restrict or swaddle your infant etc etc. Funnily enough they are all well and we stopped listening after baby number three and just nodded politely.

Moxi

[Mart]

Both for us. We prefer butter, but use the spreadable version in the colder months. Maybe we should turn the heat up?

[smegal]

ohh that furry feeling to the roof of your mouth after fish and chips fried in dripping - now THAT is a memory of much fondness

My local chippy in West Yorkshire fries in dripping.

[Fueltheburn]

ohh that furry feeling to the roof of your mouth after fish and chips fried in dripping - now THAT is a memory of much fondness

I think the problem with modern advice on foods is that generally its provided by people representing the vested interest of big business. So you cant take things at face value and need to apply yourself in most things these days.

That said even the NHS flip flops on medical health and wellbeing - I am father to Seven children, most are within a 18 months of each other in age and every time we left the hospital with the newest child we would be told a different set of acceptable things for the baby - most of which contradicted the guidance we received not 18 months before! The best ones being, must wear a hat in the cot, never cover the heads with a bed hat in the cot, swaddle them for comfort - never restrict or swaddle your infant etc etc. Funnily enough they are all well and we stopped listening after baby number three and just nodded politely.

Moxi

This is a life mantra.

I can't help but feel it's cyclical as well. Every few years depending who is trying to push the rhetoric - coffee and red wine is bad for you...actually no we were wrong it's good for you.

We as a family are moving over to everything that requires less processing and added crap.

I love the fact that the French have a mandate that specifies that bread must contain the minimum number of ingredients to be considered fresh produce.

[Tinbum]

Changed back to butter years ago.

Diet guidance is changing back to the old ways.

Drop the calorie counting, drop the processed, ultra processed etc etc. But we still think it's better to give pills and injections.

It's a bit like having a splinter and being given pain killers and antibiotics instead of treating the problem and removing the splinter!!

[Moxi]

Changed back to butter years ago.

Diet guidance is changing back to the old ways.

Drop the calorie counting, drop the processed, ultra processed etc etc. But we still think it's better to give pills and injections.

It's a bit like having a splinter and being given pain killers and antibiotics instead of treating the problem and removing the splinter!!

As a small kid I once fell over at my grandma's, the splinter that went into my shin was about 3/4 inch long and almost as wide! Mum and Grandma held me down and an uncle removed the splinter then they applied a warm brown bread and epsom salts poultice to draw any puss and clean the wound - not sure if it had to be brown bread or if white bread would have done at a pinch but that was mum and grandma's fix and on the odd occasion since then I have applied the same fix to difficult wounds with great success.

Moxi

[GarethC]

There are environmental and animal welfare reasons to favour spread over butter though. Does anyone else still call it margarine? :-)

[MikeNovack]

ONE of the sources of studies going back and forth is placement of the "partitions". The ability to control where these are placed allows manipulation of the results, potentially to the benefit of an interested party.

For example: Alcohol use
If we make the partitions just "zero" and "any amount" we can get the statement "Any consumption of alcohol very bad for you." But if the partitions were "less than 50 ml ethanol/week" and "more than 50 ml ethanol/week" could not justify that conclusion << would require a study where only those consuming <50 ml/week considered, the partitions then being "zero" vs "<50 ml" showing results, which probably would not result in a meaningful difference >>

There are animal welfare reasons to argue against butter (any) but there are not environmental reasons. You can get to statements about how much butter bad for the environment, but not down to none. This is just like the partition example above. If the cost to the environment growing plants to create an amount Y of spread is X, you can feed the plant residues of that process to cows, getting Y amount of butter (at no additional environmental cost). So while you may be able to argue "more than Y amount of butter harmful to the environment" can't argue "all" EXCEPT by cheating on placement of the partition.

[AGT]

Salted butter for me, with no added alcohol.

[GarethC]

There are animal welfare reasons to argue against butter (any) but there are not environmental reasons. You can get to statements about how much butter bad for the environment, but not down to none. This is just like the partition example above. If the cost to the environment growing plants to create an amount Y of spread is X, you can feed the plant residues of that process to cows, getting Y amount of butter (at no additional environmental cost). So while you may be able to argue "more than Y amount of butter harmful to the environment" can't argue "all" EXCEPT by cheating on placement of the partition.

But I -didn't- say people should eat none. Straw man fallacy. So there -are- environmental arguments for eating less butter.

Also, the partition problem applies equally to animal welfare.