I can’t believe I’m about to jeopardize my creative integrity, but I feel I must. I’m about to devote an entire blog to butter. Well, fake butter (futter) actually, but in my dietary world where the war against fat is a constant, futter IS butter.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve eschewed real butter thanks, I’m sure, to some public service announcement in my youth telling me how bad all that butter is for my arteries. Course, they also said that about eggs, and I consume probably a dozen and a half eggs (mostly just the whites) each week for the protein content and last time I checked, my resting heartrate was about 52 bpm, so take that state of Alabama!
Anyway, my futter of choice has been “Country Crock” for years and years. Considering we never really slathered our food with much butter growing up, my taste for Country Crock came more from a “can’t miss what you never had” background moreso than out of any love for the actual flavor. Country Crock has always come in this big tub and even with my family of four now, it usually lasted nearly two months.
But the other day when I went to the grocery store to pick up a few items, futter included, I couldn’t find my usual tub of futter and instead, there was this half-sized container of Country Crock futter proudly proclaiming, “Now with Omega Plus.”
Omegas? That’s the nutrient you get from fish right? I mean, isn’t that the big secret weapon in salmon and tuna and all those wild Alaskan swimmers we hold so dear? Well, I’m not sure what fish oil would taste like in futter, but I’m game. So, I purchased a container and sure enough, it tasted just like my old Country Crock.
But thing is, the container is about 2/3 the size of the original and guess what? Yep, it’s the same price!
Well, fool me once and all, I decided that the next time I needed futter, I’d break out of my 20 year rut and try a different brand, so I picked up a full-sized tub of “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” figuring anything that’s been around at least as long as my Country Crock has got to have something good going for it.
OMG! What I can’t believe is that people believe the name! This is quite possibly the nastiest surprise I’ve put in my mouth since my brother and his friend convinced me that giant mushrooms growing wild in the woods are tasty and delicious!
It’s so bad, it has me reconsidering just how bad REAL butter can actually be. I mean, it’s all natural right? My mom believes that all the processed food we eat is making everyone sick and while I actually tend to agree with her to a certain degree, I also don’t see me whipping out the Fry Daddy and cooking up a batch of fried chicken and french fries just because canola oil comes from…Canolas? Come to think of it, where does Canola oil come from?
So I am torn, I will admit. I’m torn between feeding my kids something that might clog up their arteries, but which is probably not going to give them cancer, OR I can keep feeding them a low fat butter substitute and pray that their consumption level doesn’t approach that of those poor lab rats with IVs in their veins that have futter dripping through them 24×7.
But if I go down the all natural path, I’m going to have to do some serious fridge cleaning out.
Do you all eat the fake stuff or is your family au naturale (with food I mean)?
(Later: As if I needed another reason to not like Country Crock anymore; I went to their Web site to leave a complaint and their input screen will not let you use apostrophes. Which means “no contractions.” What kind of grammar-Nazi’s are they? I suspect they do it to frustrate users into NOT leaving complaints, but I’m a writer and crap like this fuels my bravado!)
Postulates & Pastimes 
You know, I always mean to look up just what exactly canola oil is made from and always forget, but since I was already on the computer when you brought it up, I did a quick search and now I know!
“Canola is not the name of a natural plant but a made-up word, from the words “Canada” and “oil”. Canola is a genetically engineered plant developed in Canada from the Rapeseed Plant, which is part of the mustard family of plants.”
There we have it. As for me, I rarely ever eat butter or futter, but when I do I go for real butter. J grew up on Country Crock and still uses that even though he admitted real butter tastes better. He likes the spreadability I guess. (Is that a word?)
Anyway, this blog really made me see how differently we were raised! Mom’s secret to cooking is that butter makes everything better! We had real butter at every meal. I don’t think I tasted fake butter until I was a teenager and dieting and tried the low-cal stuff.
Re: In the immortal words of those little scamps from SouthPark, “BLAME CANADA!”
“Engineered” even…my my.
It’s too bad Canola oil doesn’t come from Cannolis. Now THAT would be tasty!
We eat some kind of Brummel and Brown yogurt-infused type of futter. I think it tastes fine, but I’m not that picky about my butter or futter. We used to buy real butter for the imp because my husband went to some kind of training that said she needed real butter to not have ADHD, but he hasn’t been buying that lately (he is our primary grocery shopper) so maybe he changed his mind about that.
We like to buy some kind of Gordita kit that used to come with zesty ranch and a taco sauce type packets. They removed the taco sauce packet and kept the price the same. I didn’t like that packet anyway, but I kind of resent not being notified of such a change. There’s a reason why I changed my major from marketing.
RE: I’m just giddy that you all have embraced “futter” so quickly. I may try and add it to Wikipedia and see what happens!
But yeah, being in Marketing really screws you up from a “product analysis” standpoint. I scrutinize everything for “loopholes” and “vagueness” in the copy. Stupid marketing!
Found your blog from AtHomeDaddy’s.
If your commenter birdpress is right about the origin of Canola oil, shouldn’t we focus a little attention on the fact that it’s made from something called “rapeseed”?
We try to strike a balance around our house between processed/artificial and natural/organic. With the insane volumes of milk that our kids drink, we’ve switched over to organic in the hopes that neither of them sprouts breasts in elementary school. Especially my son.
RE: Welcome to P&P (like that nasty bologna sandwich junk our parents made us eat in the 70s). I double checked and Birdpress is right. Those darn Canadians have fooled us again! I think I try to do what you do. I go organic on the milk when I can. Seems to be all the rage now and our grocer doesn’t stock enough oftentimes. Speaking of breasts on young boys; be sure and stay away from anything with Lavender in it: report
I’ll have to hop over and check out your site; probably in the a.m. I gotta see which of those Davids gets the boot from American Idol tonight. My money is on Cook, but I have a feeling Archuletta is going to win it all…
I’ve had both the futter and the butter, and actually the butter tastes great…now it’s just the butter but I try to eat it in moderation so as to avoid that artery-stuffage thing…well we’ll see how it all pans out! 😉
Increasing yoru omega-3 is important, so I too gave Country Crock’s product a try. I discovered their comment page was just as bad, and placed a call to customer service. Customer service has no idea what’s in their product.
I’ve reached the conclusion that increasing my omega-3s has to come from eating whole foods. There’s even some research that real butter is better than margerine.
RE: Oh, but after leaving a complaint, they mailed me a coupon for a free tub of futter! I’m considering starting a letter campaign against my automobile to see if I can get any freebies from Hyundai!
Can I ask though – how did you get this picked up and into google news?
Very impressive that this blog is syndicated through Google and is it something that is just up to Google or you actively created?
Obviously this is a popular blog with great data so well done on your seo success..
The swimming greats you should write about next, my ex was an olympic swimmer!