I Can't Believe Its Not Butter

iewww, I can definitely believe it's not butter!! LOL
Seriously, I am against any "substitute" item. It seems that eventually we find out something is wrong with every one of them.
I often substitute with avocado and a pinch of salt (for toast) or for cooking I have a spray bottle designed for olive oil.

We are real food people here too. I love the taste of CountryCrock fake butter but will not buy it since it's basically just chemicals and trans fats. Science has the ability to create delicious stuff... But that doesn't mean it's good for us.

You've got a bunch of responses already and this may be a duplicate, but I can't read all 20 so I'm posting it anyways :O)
Back in 2000 I started Weight Watchers and I was told that the spray is actually better for you then butter or margarine because the thing they put into butter or margarine to make it hard is the stuff that causes high cholesterol. Rather or not that is true, I do not know but it's something you may want to look into.
I also like Brummel and Brown, it's easy to spread and tastes good too.

Well, here's a good visual. If you leave a stick of butter and a stick on non-butter on the counter...bugs will eat the butter immediately. The non-butter will sit forever and nothing will eat it. Why? Because, no other life besides humans, thinks it's food. Animals, organisms, bacterias, insects (not even mold!!)...can't even compute it is "food." Margarine has bad cholesterol, and bad fats in it. It increases heart diseases, decreases the immune system, and has all kinds of other bad affects in your system. When margarine is made, it actually comes out as a gray, sloppy substance. They then have to coloring and deodorizing agents, to cover up the look and smell. (It smells awful and rancid.) Margarine is ONE molecule away, from being considered plastic. The margarine industry came out and said, while it is one molecule away from plastic, it's because the molecules are "arranged differently," so it's really not. Uh-huh. Right. Basically, your daughter is dining on a gray slop engineered "food" substance, that's molecules are rearranged to appear like food and not plastic, and no other organism on earth but humans will touch it...and that's only because our brains can convince our mouths, that it's something we can call food.
Yum??

I use it but I won't let my child use it. It has no calories, no fat, tastes like butter and lord only knows what is actually in it. Can't be good. I'm a fat adult who is watching my calories, but my daughter doesn't need to substitute chemicals for calories and I don't think your child should either, for the sake of ease.

Like anything that is man made it is harder to digest and your body doesn't always know what to do with it when it does.

If spreading is the issue get land o lakes spreadable butter. They whip it so it is easier to spread cold.

You can always get a butter bell. It allows you to keep the butter on the counter so it stays soft and spreadable.

We only use real butter in this house.
LBC

I am a real butter girl. LOL

But I hate that butter straight from the fridge will not spread. So, I keep a half a stick in a butter dish in the cabinet. It does not spoil and stays soft enough to spread.

Done this all my life - never have gotten sick from it - it has never spoiled or grown fuzz. My Grandparents did this also....so it is a family thing. :P

I don't buy it and try to avoid eating it altogether. I prefer to feed my family real food without exception. When I say "real food" I mean things my great-grandmother would recognize as food, so yogurt with honey or fruit but no neon-colored tubes of yogurt-like substances. I just figure we should feed our bodies things it knows how to digest and process.
I leave a stick of butter on the counter in a covered butter dish so its spreadable. I have never had it spoil, but you could get a butter bell if that's a concern.

We eat real butter in our house like many on here. I've always kept a stick of butter out. We did that for years when I was growing up, and we are still alive. :) Unfortunately, I just found out that I have an allergy to the protein in dairy (casein) so I avoid butter and all dairy completely now.

I use the fake stuff because I used SOOOO much real stuff growing up. That's how we "roll" in Wisconsin. We seem to have that ROLL problem in this state. :(

I use the real stuff in MODERATION for our son. He needs the fat and calories!

We eat real butter. Margarine it just a little too MANmade for me.

Hum............I never gave it much thought either and my 5yr old son and almost 11yr old daughter use it too because it's easier for them to use than the spreadable. I also use the spreadable I can't believe. I also use real butter in stick form for a lot of my cooking as I know it isn't as processed as fake butter is which makes it healthier for you but of course higher in fat. I've always limited my kids butter or fake butter consumption too. Their waffles aren't swimming in it ya know! lol

I'm interested to see what others have to say as well!!
S.

Real butter here...

But then we ALL have always had whole milk here too...

We eat a healthy low fat diet (lean meats, fresh fruits and veggies)...and I figure we need 'some' fat in it!

yuck, we eat real butter. good luck.

I wouldn't have that fake stuff in the house. I personally feel that we need to eat a cleaner diet (meaning getting rid of as much of the processed garbage that we can out of our diets).

I'm not going to pass judgment on fake butters but we have a butter crock where one stick of softened butter goes in a ceramic container. That container fits upside down inside another cylindrical container half filled with water. The water makes a seal keeping the butter fresh longer and the butter stays at room temp so is easy to spread. I got this one years ago at Whole Foods but you could probably find one at Sur la Table.

The "not-butter" spreads and sprays are largely made with trans fats, which are basically synthetic fats. Just like man-made sugars are generally really bad for you, man-made fats are WAY worse than the regular saturated fat in butter. Some of the spreads I think are made with olive or canola oil, so those are probably better (olive oil is actually very good for you), but many/most of them are actively unhealthy.

When I was a kid we just left a stick of butter on the counter (in a covered butter dish of course) so it was always soft. We managed to use it up fast enough that it never went bad. Maybe that's an option? Cause yeah, cold butter just does. not. spread.

I did some reading several years ago explaining how so many products today have partially hydrogenated oils in them (artificially altered to be the right consistency at room temperature or whatever) and how bad they are for you... some of that research is why you now see SO MANY products proclaiming "no hydrogenated oils" or whatever. Really it is the PARTIALLY hydrogenated oils that are the problem. Almost all (I would say "all", but I haven't read the labels of every single one, so there is room for me to be wrong) of the butter "replacements" are full of partially hydrogenated oils. So are lots of other products, by the way.
Anyhoo, after that, we went to buying good old butter in sticks. Yes it is hard when chilled and difficult to spread. So I actually USE the ceramic butter dish/cover that goes with my dish set. I leave it out on the counter and it is the perfect consistency for spreading every time. It has never gone rancid on me. We live in the deep south, (it was in the 100s today) so our A/C is usually on... but we keep it set around 77 degrees. The butter is just fine. I hate using anything else... they have no flavor to me. I also think that all my baking tastes better now that I use real butter and not substitutes. My husband prefers the smart balance spreads, and they may be absent the partially hydrogenated oils...I'll have to look. He chooses them because of the omega's in them. :)

I was also going to suggest a butter bell! ;)
http://www.butterbell.com/

I leave butter out all the time and I am still alive too. :)

Moderation--as with anything.

BUT--ever notice if you put ANY non-butter outside--not even the flies will go near it......

Personally, we like softened butter & it's pretty easy to spread. BUT my son would struggle a bit (he's also 8) so why not use the spritz for another year or so, then make the switch?

.

Thankfully my daughter is not a big butter or fake butter person. I use I cant believe for toast etc and then real butter here and there. Its nice to change it up here and there.

Real butter here as well. The things to look for when using a butter-flavored substitute: make sure there are no hydrogenated fats or transfats in there. They are bad for your cholesterol - even when you are not overweight.
The other thing that that there is some concern that diacetyl, a chemical that is used as artificial butter flavoring, has been known to cause cancer in workers that are exposed to large amounts for a long time - it causes lung cancer when inhaled.
Now they say that the very small small amounts that you consume in a product like that are not dangerous to your health, but personally if I can easily avoid ingesting a carcinogen, I will.
Good luck!

You can read as many opinions online for the fake stuff as you can against it. I don't think the "experts" have a clue. However, my own personal opinion is that I trust the cows more than I trust the manufacturers of the fake stuff. I've used both, but grew up on fresh farm churned butter and feel that it is much superior. I totally understand your daughter's point that the spray on is easier, but you can pull out a small portion of butter and let it come to room temperature safely so that it's ready for her to spread without difficulty.

We eat real butter. I even enjoy making my own.
I had a neighbor who was older and had heart issues. Her cardiologist told her that real butter was much healthier for her than the other stuff.
That was HER situation, I can't say if that's true for all cardiology patients.
I don't know about the butter spray or what the ingredients are.
It may have less fat since it's sprayable, but not all fats are bad.
In my opinion, nothing tastes as good as real butter.