To keep spreadable butter in the cupboard

[willywallaby]

Every time MIL comes round she moves the spreadable butter from the cupboard to the fridge and explains that it spreads straight from the fridge, so it needs to be kept in the fridge. Spreadable butter does not spread straight from the fridge though. None of the own brand ones do and Anchor doesn't. I don't know about Lurpak. MIL bakes all her own sourdough so maybe it spreads better on there. And it spreads okay on toast. But making a regular sandwich on supermarket sliced bread is a ridiculous experience with spreadable butter unless it's at room temp. I only keep spreadable butter in the fridge if the weather is hot enough to liquify the butter. Or if MIL has been round and I haven't put things right again.

Unless the rest of their diets are exactly the same as yours and they are also doing 30-40k steps a day in a physically demanding job I don't think you can say that their conditions are purely down to using butter - in our grandparents day butter was the norm and they were all much skinnier than us!

I expect a sid by side analysis would show that your friends eat a lot more processed or sugary foods than you and do a lot less exercise!!

Normal butter - out on the side

Processed butter e.g. lurpak spreadable or anchor spreadable definitely in the fridge. It's supposed to be refrigerated.

@FairKoala , it probably wasn't the butter. It's not something somebody eats on its own.

It’s because people are trying to explain to you that you should only leave butter out, not spreadable fake butter, that goes in the fridge.

I said this upthread but it's worth repeating because a lot of people are saying why not just use a block of butter? A block of butter is twice the price of a tub of spreadable! At both Asda and Tesco it's £1.99 for 250g own brand butter, and £2.18 for 500g own brand spreadable!

Lurpak is gross anyway. Lactic acid

She doesn't need it explained, FFS. It's her spread, she can have it how she wants it.

Tesco Butterpak Spreadable - Slightly Salted 500g - Tesco Groceries
Tesco British Salted Block Butter 250G - Tesco Groceries

Buy real butter and use less of it.

Butter - mmm!
Butterpak - why bother?

I’ll allow a fourth category of fat based spread/dairy based margarines. I would have clumped them in with margarines, but you make a well reasoned argument to be more precise.

By butteresque I meant things that look, feel and act like butter, ie butter, its derivatives and sensible substitutes.

Apologies - you’re right. I retract my comments about Buttersoft!

Real butter should only be kept out of the fridge in a proper butter dish with a lid, preferably in a relatively cool cupboard.
Margarine/ spread should be kept in the fridge.
That’s my opinion based on the fact that that’s what it says on the storage instructions plus you can tell when it’s been left out because it tastes off. It’s a very particular taste that takes me back to eating sandwiches brought to school that had to sit in my school bag for hours til lunchtime.
Your mil’s out of line though.
If you want to make butter/ marg easier to spread stick the butter knife into a cup of hot water/ tea for a few minutes before you use it.

I’ve kept spreadable butter out of the fridge for days and it’s been fine. Used up within a certain time frame it won’t go off. Butter is kept in the fridge at supermarkets so it stays fresher longer between delivery time and the time it’s purchased.

I buy Lurpak unsalted spreadable. It's just about spreadable from the fridge on robust wholemeal bread (my fridge is not very cold), but I would get it out in advance if I planned to do that. This time of year I get it out in advance and warm the knife. I'd keep it outside the fridge if it got used more regularly - it would easily stay hard enough at this time of year.

What brand is it that it is hard if it is kept in the fridge? Lurpak and Country Life can be spread straight from the fridge if you draw the knife across the top to get the butter as a pp explained earlier.

And what kind of bread are you spreading it on?

The reason you need to keep margarine in the fridge is because it has a higher water content than butter. Bacteria need moisture to grow. They find it very difficult to grow in butter as it has a low moisture (water) content- butter is literally 100% fat.
Margarine is an emulsion of fat and water and therefore bacteria will grow in it. Like other high risk foods, it needs to be kept in the fridge to limit bacterial growth.
Margarine does “go off” and it will smell very bad. It can also go mouldy.

You need to keep your margarine in the fridge for food safety reasons.

It is NOT butter.
it is a mix of butter, water, oil, and looks like they’ve added a bacteria too- maybe as an emulsifier- who knows why

Those are additives though. Real butter only contains salt at most, which is a preservative so it doesn’t need to be in the fridge. No oil of any sort

I’m enjoying the butter snobs on this thread.

Not an agenda, just arithmetic. 50% butter means half butter and half “other stuff”.

I'm OK with that.

Anyway. I have got my butter dish out to put some real butter in now.

The lactic cultures is what makes it taste like it does - that's why lurpak type butters taste the way they do. The milk is cultured with lactobacillus. Regular butter such as anchor isn't cultured.
I'm talking about regular butters here, no idea what they do with the spreadable ones but I presume with lurpak they use regular cultured butter in the mix.

yes if I am using butter (flora buttery spread) I take it out of the fridge and often keep it out. It doesn't come to any harm unless it goes liquid lol.

If people post questions on here then readers can post what ever they want to say. I stand by my comment.

Rapeseed oil and lactic culture are additives. An additive means it is added to the original product. Butter is usually just pasteurized/unpasteurized cream and salt or just pasteurized/unpasteurized cream for unsalted butter. That is it's pure form. When they add in other ingredients like water, rapeseed oil, lactic culture they become additives as they are "added" to the original product. I have no agenda, it is just how food additive science works.

President is the only bearable spreadable butter, the rest taste strange. That is definitely spreadable from the fridge.