One of the things I remember from growing up is that we always had to have bread and butter with dinner. It didn't matter what we were having. Chicken. Beef. Turkey. Fish. None of the above. We had to have bread on the table. We had to have butter on the table.
And the butter was always spread on the bread thickly and eaten with the meal. When I say butter, I mean that in a loose sense because of weight and diet concerns.
My mother and father purchased margarine and the "I can't believe it's not butter" spread that was not butter. Because of the advertising and the articles they avoided actual milk based churned butter because of the salt content and the fat content and the impact on our bodies that had been advertised.
Sadly that advertising was just to sell the artificial stuff that was really bad for you. With the vegetable oils that were inflammatory and the hydrogenated whatevers that created more inflammation and irritation in our bodies than we could ever imagine.
If we lost weight eating this stuff, it was probably because our bodies were rejecting what we were ingesting.
Grammy, my grandmother on my mother's side, lived with us for many years. She would literally go into panic mode if we got down to less than a loaf or two of bread in the freezer.
This was almost always white bread. It was not Wonder Bread because that was too expensive. We didn't have a lot of money, so we bought the inexpensive kind. And as I got older, my mother splurged and bought the white wheat bread in an effort to be healthier. I don't think it worked very well.
We always had to have the artificial butter. The crock plastic bin of spread was prominent in our refrigerator. Sometimes there would be a splurge on the "I can't believe it's not butter" spread.
I don't remember ever seeing Land of Lakes butter in our refrigerator growing up. And I really don't remember seeing any of the actual churned milk butter in our refrigerator. Even for recipes when my mother was going to bake something.
I didn't think anything of it. But as an adult, in my 40s and 50s, I started noticing just how artificial the artificial butter was. And I switched over to regular "real" butter. I do remember a friend at work showing me what his father showed him about the Land of Lakes butter, how he had taken the logo from the package and overlaid it with another logo from another Land of Lakes butter package to show the nipples of the Indian on the package. I thought it was hilarious but also embarrassing.
Now when I consume butter it's typically real milk churned butter with olive oil in it or just sticks of milk churned butter.
No salt added is better for me but I'll even do it with the salt. I try to avoid the hydrogenated mess oils and spreads. And I feel healthier!
I guess today's marketing is working on me.
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