Butter is back as the nation’s favourite as health fears melt away
AFTER years of worrying about the dangers of saturated fat, butter is officially back on the menu.
The latest Family Food Survey reveals butter is once again outselling margarine – making it one of the few traditional staples to survive huge changes in the nation’s diet.
The government survey, which has tracked eating habits since 1940, shows that family meals are no longer the ‘meat and two veg’ typical of previous generations.
Instead of more traditional fare, modern Britons opt for super-hot chillies, Asian flavours such as wasabi, and sweet potatoes – now grown on farms across the UK.
Half a million families have been questioned since 1940 for the study, produced for the Government’s food and farming department Defra.
It said: ‘Butter has overtaken margarine. While the substitute spread overtook butter in the 1950s, and again in the 1980s, margarine’s popularity has nosedived in the last 20 years and butter is back on top.’
Warnings about the harmful effects of eating butter were turned on their head earlier this year, when researchers claimed links between saturated fat and heart disease were not based on sound science. Professor Iain Broom, of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, said there was mounting evidence against the introduction of low-fat diets.
He suggested that refined carbohydrates, particularly sugar, were the real demons in terms of weight gain and associated illhealth such as Type 2 diabetes.
Recent studies have also suggested that eating red meat – particularly in processed forms such as sausages and bacon – can raise the risk of cancer.
The food survey found that, perhaps in light of repeated health warnings, families are eating less meat and more fish.
Britons have also made a concerted effort over the years to get their five-a-day.
The study said: ‘Fruit is more popular, but we’ve no time for tins – fresh fruit consumption has risen by nearly 50 per cent since 1974 ... with grapes, melons and citrus fruits increasingly popular.’
Other tinned products on the way out include spaghetti hoops – once a teatime favourite.
The study also found changing lifestyles mean we no longer have the time or inclination to spend hours preparing dinner. It said six times more ready meals are consumed today than in 1974.
And many foods once considered foreign are now as much a part of the national diet as fish and chips.
‘Pasta purchases have trebled since the 1970s,’ the report said. ‘In 1974 the survey recorded no purchases of frozen or fresh pizza – today, it shows an average of 78g – roughly equivalent to a large slice of pizza for every person every week.’
And it said lard – the cooking fat of choice in the 1940s – is now virtually extinct in favour of the once luxurious olive oil.
A spokesman for Defra said: ‘The data shows how we enjoy a far more varied diet than the traditional “meat and potatoes” meals our parents were raised on, with an array of flavours to cater to all tastes.’
‘Pasta purchases
have trebled’