Butter Shortage

[42_42_42]

We use butter. Margarine is not allowed in our house. Fun fact: margarine is a manufactured product and is not considered a food or drug by the FDA so it's completely unregulated. They do all sorts of weird chemically stuff to alter oils to turn them into margarine (basically, they rearrange the atoms in it). Butter is at least an all natural product. Of course, if you go putting a stick of it in everything it's gonna clog your arteries right up. I do a lot of baking and my buttercream is made with butter, not shortening, so we go through a lot in a year. There's no way in hell you're going to find decent butter at 50 cents a pound though. That is sketchy as hell.

[CoffeeMonkey]

Fun fact: margarine is a manufactured product and is not considered a food or drug by the FDA so it's completely unregulated. They do all sorts of weird chemically stuff to alter oils to turn them into margarine (basically, they rearrange the atoms in it).

margarine is indeed a food and is regulated by the FDA.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/script...cfm?fr=166.110

Mind you, it's not a particularly GOOD food. They don't so much rearrange the atoms as they introduce hydrogen (hydrogenated!) to vegetable oils, making the fat chains behave more like saturated fats so they'd be solid and stable at room temperature. the idea was to have a cheap butter that didn't have saturated fats. Except whoopsie, the trans fats created in the process are worse for you than saturated.

Some of the vegetable spreads now are made without trans fats, but frankly, I hate tub spreads. I find them watery and not tasty, and you can't bake with them. Ever try to make grilled cheese with a tub spread? It's not pretty. Frankly, I'm betting on the 9 calories per gram of fat to get me before the difference between saturated and trans fat will.

Also, amen on the real butter in the buttercream. I'm a pastry student and I do a lot of baking at home. If I'm going to go to the trouble of making my good italian buttercream, I'm not gunking it up with shortening. The bakeshop at school uses real butter in almost everything we make. The only class that uses shortening to any great degree is wedding cakes, and that's because the emphasis is on decorating, not on the actual cake making, and there's a limited budget. The only time I choose margarine over butter (aside from cost) is when I'm cooking for my no-dairy friend.

[EricKei]

And let's not forget that yummy yellow dye in the oleo (margarine), too ^_^ IIRC, the stuff comes out white-ish if they neglect to include it.

[CoffeeMonkey]

Indeed, and some stick margarines are paler than others. The Imperial sticks are much paler than the meijer or kroger brand sticks.

If my knowledge of pioneer life is accurate* (Laura Ingals, don't fail me now!) variations in the cows' diet would lead to paler butter in the wintertime, and people might dye the butter then, too, if they wanted it yellow. But they used carrot juice.




*srsly, I read this in Little House in the Big Woods. I don't know if it's actually true or not. Grain of salt.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

If my knowledge of pioneer life is accurate* (Laura Ingals, don't fail me now!) variations in the cows' diet would lead to paler butter in the wintertime, and people might dye the butter then, too, if they wanted it yellow. But they used carrot juice.




*srsly, I read this in Little House in the Big Woods. I don't know if it's actually true or not. Grain of salt.

I grew up reading those books as well.

My mom grew up on a tobacco farm and my grandmother churned her own butter. Don't recall if she ever had to dye any of it, but the first time Mom ever bought butter from a grocery store was in the late 60's after she moved out of the house and married my Dad.

And IHO, store-bought butter doesn't taste quite as good as home-churned butter, but it's close.

[XCashier]

If my knowledge of pioneer life is accurate* (Laura Ingals, don't fail me now!) variations in the cows' diet would lead to paler butter in the wintertime, and people might dye the butter then, too, if they wanted it yellow. But they used carrot juice.

*srsly, I read this in Little House in the Big Woods. I don't know if it's actually true or not. Grain of salt.

I read those books too, and I seem to recall the carrot juice in the butter as well. I need to re-read them soon. It was very interesting to learn how they prepared food back in the pioneer days (anyone want some head cheese? Heh heh heh...)

[42_42_42]

margarine is indeed a food and is regulated by the FDA.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/script...cfm?fr=166.110

Well, that's a change, then. It didn't used to be.

[mhkohne]

Well, that's a change, then. It didn't used to be.

Not really a new thing (though the regs were recently updated) - I found some old copies of 21cfr166 going back as far as 1982.

[Pixilated]

*snip*

If my knowledge of pioneer life is accurate* (Laura Ingals, don't fail me now!) variations in the cows' diet would lead to paler butter in the wintertime, and people might dye the butter then, too, if they wanted it yellow. But they used carrot juice.

*srsly, I read this in Little House in the Big Woods. I don't know if it's actually true or not. Grain of salt.

Really? That sounds ... interesting. Wonder how much it changed the flavour of the butter? Not to mention you would get some additional vitamins and minerals on your morning toast.