To wonder why anyone uses "spreads" instead of butter?

[AjasLipstick]

They're awful! So fake and plastic-ish. Hasn't it been proved that butter's better for you?

Do you use spread? Why?

Spreads probably are healthier I think (and are not margarine). I like butter on toast but olive spread on most other things. I am trying to cut out palm oil though and it does seem to be in them all.

Mostly Country Life spreadable here. Do prefer block butter but there's only me to eat it - Dh will only use Benecol or similar.
I like all the local butters, Losely etc. and will buy now and then.
I never buy French or Lurpak - I like to support our own farmers.

I really don't see how a 'spread' made in a laboratory from goodness- knows- what- fats can be 'healthier' than butter. Not lashings of butter obviously....
If I am on a health kick I just use a drop of olive oil instead of butter.

The best thing about spreads is that they are handy if you are making a pile of sandwiches.

My house is so cold that even though I leave the butter out of the fridge (in one of those cute glass French butter dishes with a cow on the lid) it still comes in chunks and tears the bread up..

Spreads are probably healthier I think

Not according to plenty of current research. It's looking like a lot of the past advice about fats was absolute bollocks. This quote is from 2013 and that was just the beginning of the tide turning.

"One 2013 study published in the British Medical Journal found “increased rates of death” among men with heart disease who replaced saturated fat with omega 6 polyunsaturated fatty acid, also known as linoleic acid. Linoleic is a widely used polyunsaturated fat found in high amounts in vegetable oils such as corn, sunflower, safflower and soybean, and in margarines made from these oils. Another study this year by the University of Cambridge found that saturated fat in dairy foods might protect against diabetes, while a major study by McMaster University in Canada failed to find a link between saturated fat and ill health.

I was bought up on butter but i'v always used spread usually the cheapest at the moment it's lidi their version of i can't believe it's not butter,a while ago i thought i'd treat myself to some butter didn't like it

because it is a destroyer of bread. My kitchen is too cold to soften it despite my super cute cottage butter dish that just sits gathering dust and icicles in my bastard arctic kitchen

Dull and. Most spreadable butters are just butter (say 70%ish) mixed with oil to make it spreadable.

Just depends whether you think more oil or more butter is better.

I buy spread. Even spreadable butter is quite hard to spread I find. Plus butter is really expensive now. Butter is much nicer though.

What is this "plastic" orgod knows what people are referring to?
I don't get it.
I've used sunflower oil spread, olive oil and vegetable oil spread. I can't say any of that is plastic. If you're happy to cook with it why call it plastic when it's solidified? What am I missing...

Merry it’s because it’s not simply vegetable oil in its solid state. What you’re missing is this (Bertolli olive oil spread)
ngredients:
Vegetable Oils in varying proportions (38%) (Rapeseed, Palm, Sunflower), Water, Olive Oil (21%), Sweet WHEY Powder (MILK), BUTTERMILK, Salt (1.1%), Emulsifier (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Thickener (Sodium Alginate), Citric Acid, Natural Flavouring, Vitamins A and D, Colour (Carotenes).

Spreadable butter because I like my bread in one piece. Or if it’s a crusty bread proper goat butter!

Another cows milk allergy here.. also the things we use it for you can’t taste the difference.

I don't eat Bertolli but I see your point; kind of.
I don't think thickeners or preservatives mean that things are magically plastic or close to.
You'll find similar ingredients in storebought cakes, crisps, food in general even.

For example sodium alginate is a stabiliser it's used for even cheese, yoghurts, ice cream, jam, tinned creams and custards and so forth.
Potassium sorbate is used in dried or long stored foods - including meats like pork scratchings and jerky, dried fruits, dried veg and so on.
Can't see a problem with milk powder/whey powder or (obviously) the oils, buttermilk... if anyone does feel free to point it out.
Mono and diglycerids of fatty acids as in = E471? I don't eat that because I'm vegetarian, but I don't see a problem with it for people who are happy with the risk of consuming pork fat. Gelatin is commonly consumed no problem (hello haribos!) and when kids yoghurts that are pink in colour often contain cochineal (ie, crushed up cochineal beetles) I find it hard to believe many can really object to a bit of pork fat/vegetable fat.

In short this is all stuff commonly consumed anyway.
I have no issue with people having their preferences due to taste or whatever but I hope anyone clutching their pearls over the butter like plastic is eating a paleo diet....

charlestonchaplin - palm oil is claggy, and if I am buying an '0live' spread I want to buy olive not palm oil.If I wanted 'marg' it wouldn't matter but to call Olivio olive oil spread was fine when it actually was an olive oil spread, now it is a blend of clag and olive oil.

Palm oil is in almost everything and it is destroying habitats and animals which can never be replaced and will become extinct. There are alternatives.

I was brought up on butter, we didn't have much money but my mother didn't fall for the hype, it used to be nice but really a lot of butter is not that great any more. Younger generations will not know the difference, just as today's children won't be aware that we used get proper chocolate.

I am sad that food has been messed about with so much in the last 20 -30 years and barely tastes of anything nice.

I rarely use butter, for health reasons but also because of ethical ones. Once in a while I will make toast and that is the only time I use it for myself.

Salted Guernsey butter all the time for me. We pay £1.40 ish for a 250g block. I don’t know if that’s good or bad but it’s so good I’m happy to pay for it and to support local farmers. I keep it in a butter dish on the side, out of the sun and in the ‘cool’ part of the kitchen except for summer months when it’s in the fridge. It will spread on bread but we like it thick anyway. It doesn’t go rancid, it doesn’t last long enough.

It's only been the last few years that I've started using butter not olive oil spreads and I'm late 40s. I was under the distinct impression that olive oil was the elixir of life and butter was an artery-clogging demon. Very glad I've wised up.

I was brought up on flora. It’s easy to look back with hindsight and criticise the “fat is bad” message but that was the best information available at the time

I now eat butter, or our pack spreadable or olive oil spreads.

Honestly I don’t think it’s a financial decision for many but the very poorest. It’s such a minor financial decision you’d have to be extremely hard up to use it as a decider

Two main reasons:

Cow's milk protein allergy/intolerance in the family

and

Terrible animal welfare in dairy farming - yes I've seen organic dairy farming and that's still pretty shocking

However - I have decided not to buy any more spread and we'll be using olive oil or an insanely expensive cashew-based butter alternative from the health food shop, sparingly, as I don't think oil-based spreads are at all good for you.

If I could get ethically-produced butter I'd definitely eat it.

I dunno.
Flora and other brands are about £1 when on offer fucking always for 500g. Or own brand butters are the same price. You can also get value veg oil spread or lard for 40p if required.
So £2/kilo. Or 80p a kilo (disclaimer; lard is grim. But some people use it like butter. )
Cheapest butter I can find* is £6.40 per kilo (£1.60 for 250g) I think that's significant enough to put many off buying. It did when I lived in the UK. Add in a few products like that (ie extra £2-5 here and there) and you can see how £30 over your grocery budget just kind of happens. I don't think "only the very poorest" budget, either.
*i freely admit I looked no further than a single grocery website and haven't done a grocery shop in the UK for quite some time.

Because I'm sick of getting gawddamned holes in my gawddamned sandwiches!!

Sprinkler sorry but I think you're wrong re your statement about cost not bring an issue for anyone except the very poorest. In the last couple of years butter has doubled in price. If you add that to the fact that so many other groceries have significantly increased in price, many people - not just the destitute - are going to buy a cheaper equivalent if possible.

" Honestly I don’t think it’s a financial decision for many but the very poorest. It’s such a minor financial decision you’d have to be extremely hard up to use it as a decider ",

guess what many many people are 'extremely hard up' these days..and the difference of say fifty pence on just one item, can definitely be a decider...

and yes butter has more or less doubled in price in less than a year. If you don't have to do mental arithmetic when you are shopping, well good for you, but I can assure you that you are in the minority.

Cmpa child that I’m breastfeeding so no airy for either of us. Flora Freedom/DF is great.

I probably won’t go back to having much dairy when I wean DS off the breast.

Oh yes I agree Hester. But £1 vs £2 isn’t a particular strain for most