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> One recent example of skimpflation that consumers did notice involved Conagra's Smart Balance spread, a dairy-free butter substitute. Conagra recently changed
by imgabe 4y ago
> One recent example of skimpflation that consumers did notice involved Conagra's Smart Balance spread, a dairy-free butter substitute. Conagra recently changed its formulation to reduce its share of vegetable oil from 64% to 39% — an almost 40% reduction in vegetable oil.
Ugh, nobody should be eating congealed vegetable oil in the first place. One more advantage of eating real food like butter is that they can’t replace the ingredients with something else when it’s just one ingredient.
- throwaway699769 4y ago
- sneak 4y agoNot all milk is of equal quality. Corners can be cut even with a single ingredient.
- imgabe 4y agoThe minimum quality milk is still better than vegetable oil or whatever industrial byproduct they’re substituting for vegetable oil.
- ksaj 4y agoThis is correct. The difference between US and Canadian milk is Canada's fine filtering and laws against steroid and antibiotics. The reason Canadians resented the forced import of US milk is because of course milk is cheaper when health-impacting shortcuts are taken.
- jbay808 4y agoUnfortunately, the higher price of Canadian milk means that dairy products like ice cream and yogurt are padded out with "milk ingredients", "skim milk powder", and "milk protein powder" from cheaper imported US milk, because the powdered products circumvent import limits. (The higher prices in Canada probably have more to do with supply controls than quality controls, though).
- ksaj 4y agoSupply control is a huge factor in the pricing. People will always try to find those shortcuts, and unfortunately the purchasers are very rarely better off for it. There was a (thankfully brief) period in the 70's when people were buying powdered milk to save money. But then again, it was around the same time they were pretending that margarine was healthier than butter. There was even an illegal margarine trade that we euphemistically referred to as "Quebec Butter."
- sph 4y agoThe question is what do you replace vegetable oil in dairy free """butter""" with. Sawdust? Spent motor grease?
- eloff 4y agoWater. They literally watered it down.
- Aaronstotle 4y agoIf someone is vegan, telling them to eat butter instead is not much help. (Source: dating a vegan and try to convince them to eat butter on a daily basis)
- imgabe 4y agoOlive oil would probably be a better vegan substitute for anywhere you would use butter. Although that can suffer from the same substitution problems.
- cwkoss 4y agoor coconut oil, if the melt point is important
- scheme271 4y agoOlive oil is somewhat notorious for being counterfeited (with a really high portion, 60%-70%, being fake).
- thatfrenchguy 4y agoYou can buy olive oil made in the US to avoid that problem though :)
- nkingsy 4y agoCostco DOP is solid
- vkou 4y agoI'd expect it to still be better for you than re-branded margarine.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoWhy would you do that? Don't you like who they are?
- tmtvl 4y ago
- throwaway742 4y agoSome people have dietary restrictions.