I put butter and margarine in a class all by themselves because I find them to be the most confusing of all. Non-fat and light butter taste okay, but you can’t use either of them for baking or frying (I know I said the dreaded word "fry" but every once in a while everyone should) I often use "I can’t believe it's you know what" because you can bake or fry with that. I both like and don’t like margarine, which puts me in the same category as the ambivalent people who put the labels on the product in the first place. It’s only a drop less fattening than butter, but it’s also an artificial product and there are many studies concerned about that.
Another butter substitute that I won’t touch is that alien container marked "trans-fat." I see trans-fat products, but they lurk with such uncertainty upon supermarket shelves that I feel I cannot trust them. I have heard they are no good for you, but I don’t know why. I heard the same thing about my ex-husband. I didn’t listen then; I try to now. In the long run, I feel I’m better off having the real thing in smaller quantities. (This axiom applies to butter, but not to jewelry or good times.) One tablespoon goes a long way in flavor and can only wreak a certain amount of havoc on thighs and buttocks.
Non-fat and fat-free are the same thing, as far as I can tell. It's like being free of pregnancy and non-pregnant. Redundant and confusing, n’est ce pas? Or do I feel this way only because I am a college graduate? These labels are driving me nuts! Total fat and total carbohydrate and fat per serving and on and on and on. Accept no substitute except this substitute! If I don’t buy their product I might as well vote for whoever made it. They make as much sense as most politicians do anyway.
So what to do, what to do? I have no idea. I just watch what I eat and eat what I watch. Sometimes I feel like a voyeur, checking out labels, smelling, feeling, weighing and evaluating. These days everything and everybody smells like a strawberry. I wonder how much fat is in one of them? Worse than that, I wonder if I will ever be able to eat anything without considering how fattening it is. Maybe I should go back to the old days, the way things were before the hormonal war raged through my body and I used to eat chicken pot pies. Maybe you should too. Life is no fun without some fun. By the way, has anyone seen my ex-husband?
Did you know . . .
"Our lives are not in the lap of the gods, but in the lap of our cooks."
