How to Choose the Best Butter

You don’t have to give up butter if you want to eat a healthy diet. In fact, butter can easily be a part of a healthy and balanced diet for anyone. Unless you’re vegan or can’t tolerate dairy, the only thing you need to worry about is the number of calories because butter is calorie-dense and delicious, which means you can easily eat too much of it!

When buying butter in a store, make sure you’re getting the best quality for your money. Pay attention to the ingredient list and stay away from butters that have a longer shelf life than around 35 days—this means they have additives. The butter should be packed in a non-transparent packaging because exposure to light decreases the amount of Vitamin A in it.

High-quality butter should be smooth and soft. It’s yellow in color, but you can notice differences depending on the time of the year. Summer butter can be darker than winter butter because the animals get different food over the year.

Once you’ve got it home, check the quality by putting a small piece in boiling water. Natural butter will melt evenly while the low-quality one won’t. If your butter crumbles when you cut it with a knife, it means there’s a lot of added water in it.

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Yep, I ate white sourdough bread & butter (with flaked salt – ah yum)… ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Did I enjoy it? Absolutely. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Is this nutritionally the most amazing food to eat? Perhaps not. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Will I gain ‘X’ amount of weight? No. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Will I die? Nope. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Unless you are Coeliac or gluten intolerant, there is NO valid reason to eliminate gluten from your diet 🤦🏼‍♀️ this goes for all foods – dairy, sugar, alcohol, chocolate… ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ You may find this weird coming from a Nutritionist. I am not saying you should eat these foods for your entire diet, however ALL foods are part of a healthy lifestyle – in moderation. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ But have you noticed that restricting the foods you love to eat, will just make you want to eat them even more? ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Food is meant for so much more than it’s nutritional value. We need food for pleasure, enjoyment, meaning and connection. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Living a healthy lifestyle should be P L E A S U R E A B L E ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ But, the pleasure is taken away once you focus purely on the ‘health’ of food. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ That’s why, I ate the bread with #noregrets and then followed with a salad but not because I felt I had to compensate – but because that is what I truly felt like! When you listen to your body, you start to notice amazing things ✨

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