2014
A fear of trans fats and aggressive lobbying by the dairy industry has resulted in a butter comeback, particularly amongst young people, reports the LA Times. A move away from processed margarine products is particularly popular amongst bakers looking to capture a more organic sensibility:
The backlash against trans fats pushed butter consumption in the U.S. to a 40-year high in 2012, according to the latest statistics.
Americans now eat 5.6 pounds of butter per capita, up from a low of 4.1 pounds in 1997. In the last decade alone, butter consumption has grown 25%.
“Everything tastes better with butter,” said David Riemersma, president of the American Butter Institute and head of Butterball Farms in Grand Rapids, Mich. “Consumers also want real, natural wholesome products. They want to understand all the things on an ingredient list. Butter fits perfectly. It’s either just cream or cream and salt.”
1950
Dairy lobbying had successfully prevented margarine from being marketed aggressively as a butter substitute since its creation in the late-nineteenth century, but by the 1940s the low price and easy availability of margarine had made it attractive enough that President Harry Truman signed a law allowing margarine producers to add yellow coloring to their product, making it virtually indistinguishable from butter. The New-York Herald Tribune reported on the shift:
This was a housewife’s victory, and she was the strength of the “margarine lobby” which outraged the dairy Senators.
The unexpected large margin of victory in the final vote of 56 to 16 suggests that a good many Senators had heard back from margarine users back home, and that undecided members jumped aboard at the last minute.
Margarine, after conference and Presidential approval, will be freed of all federal—but not state—restrictions, except the legitimate insistence that it be clearly labeled. We believe the margarine industry would be wise to police itself conscientiously to avoid future complaints that it is using sharp practice to proselyte the butter buyer. Margarine can make its own way without purporting to come from the churn.