Wild Woman on Feral Acres: Keep the Butter, Jettison the Guilt!

Published by Monday, December 20, 2010 Permalink 0
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by Esmaa Self

We’re well into the New Year, have you managed to slip into those skinny jeans yet? If not, don’t worry, help has arrived in the form of a quick tip for transitioning to a healthier you: replace your butter with better butter.

Better butter is the happy mix of olive oil and butter. By mixing your butter with equal parts olive oil, you trade 50% bad fat for good. Learn about good and bad fats on Health Castle.

Look how easy it is to mix your own better butter! Let your butter sit at room temperature until soft; whip with an equal amount of olive oil. Done. Just soften and mix your way to a 50% healthier butter that actually helps clean cholesterol from your arteries.

But why not just buy commercial butter/oil mixes? For a handsomely reduced cost and a few minutes work you can save the planet. Or at least the 25-35 plastic butter tubs you’d send to your neighborhood landfill if you didn’t recycle. Not to mention that by buying the butter in paperboard and the olive oil in glass then storing your better butter in glass, you sidestep the ‘what chemicals leach into your food through contact with plastic’ problem. Then there’s the issue of the quality of the olive oil. Like I always say: make it yourself and know what’s in your food.

Want to shave a few more calories? Add a little water to the mix. The recipe below makes a lighter better butter with a mere 89 calories per tablespoon as compared to both regular and better butter’s 100 calories.

Lighter Better Butter

Ingredients

1 cup room temperature butter
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
Scant ¼ cup tap water

Put ingredients into bowl; whip with electric mixer until smooth; pour into containers, refrigerate.

You say you don’t know if you have time to whip up Lighter Better Butter, and wonder why you should bother, given that there are a number of light butters on the market? Compare ingredients for Land O’ Lakes Light Butter and homemade Lighter Better Butter, then decide which is worthy of your time and which is more likely to aid and abet your health goals.

Land O’Lakes Light Butter is one of the better brands in the U.S.:  Ingredients: Water*, Butter (cream, salt), Canola Oil*, Buttermilk*, Contains Less Than 2% of Food Starch- Modified*, Tapioca Maltodextrin*, Salt, Distilled Monoglycerides*, Lactic Acid*, Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate (preservatives)*, Natural Flavor*, Xanthan gum*, PGPR*, Beta Carotene (color). *Ingredients not found in regular butter, as compared to Homemade Better Butter Ingredients: Butter, Olive Oil, Water.

Here’s to your lighter, better and more sustainable 2011!

Wild Woman on Feral Acres, chronicling the crazy culinary & farming adventures of a “certified foodie”.

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