During my childhood, I think I ate margarine like it was yogurt.
That may have been where I went wrong.
There was a point growing up, where the foods being marketed were all about 'getting healthy'. This was in the 80/90s - to give you a timeline - and my approx. age. Everything was being sold as 'low fat', low this, low that. It wasn't my main focus as a kid, I assumed it must be good for you. I probably didn't care. Adults made food, then I ate it.
But I did care about my butter - being margarine. I thought this tasted so much better.
Let's fast forward to today.
(I will be talking more about my food journey in the coming blogs. For today, it's about the butter. )
During my journey, I discovered that food was becoming fake/r. The more it was being marketed, the faker its ingredients. The underlying message always being 'healthier.'
Hmmm.
Let me remind you, this is the 80s and 90s. The music sounds were just as synthesized as the food. And I loved it!
But it didn't love me.
Here-in lies the beginning of the journey. According to statistics now, we are so much more unhealthy today, some 30/40 years later.
What happened?
I am not a dietician. I am just someone that had to figure it out for myself - what worked for me. I am still working on it and I am not giving any advice (legal disclaimer). But something that came to me in the early 2000s is that I would feel better only when eating food -made from scratch.
That was the start to my label reading and researching what was really in our food.
When I saw that margarine was made with overly processed ingredients compared to butter, I knew something was amiss! That was the end of margarine for me. Yes, it was that simple.
We have been marketed to with such fervor, we forgot to look into products ourselves.
There was a point where I'd see something in powder or packaged form and think there must be a way to make the real thing. Seriously. Powder does not grow on trees. Luckily, D got on this bandwagon since he is a foodie.
And one fine day, just for kicks, he made butter mints.
What?!?! These can be made for real? Seems like a funny thought, but when they are so ubiquitous on business counters, all packaged up, you forget there is a source. This happens with so many things. That's where the recipe cards came in for us. They were an attempt to have a basic recipe, for the basics.
The Better Butter Mints is the latest recipe card. These are so easy. When you eat the real scratch-made thing, you will start to taste the chemicals in the store bought version. This taste difference happens once you start to make things from scratch. Generally, or my hope is, that you don't go back.
The fun thing about this recipe is that it has a play-dough-like consistency. I am pretty sure your kids would enjoy the process of making these, too.
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As for Butter vs Margarine... Coincidently, I am in the world of marketing as a professional. I do think that food marketing was the catalyst of me watching and learning the tricks of the trade. They are carefully crafted messages to manipulate you into believing enough to buy. It isn't all deceptive, but it can be carefully crafted. It can start to be a language that you learn to interpret. (Again, I'll talk more about this later.)
In the meantime, when in doubt, make it scratch-made!
This is 100% human made - including the grammar errors. Enjoy.