Butter, Butter, Marvelous Butter!

So you may not be eating butter straight out of the tub, like you would ice cream or even cake icing, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love it. It’s hard not to. Butter is everywhere and its praises have been sung by the best chefs in the world over and over again.

If you think butter consumption in the United States is high, just head to Europe. The French especially love their foods cooked in butter, covered in butter and served with a side of butter. We’re not talking margarine here. We’re talking real, fresh, straight-from-the-cow butter. The good stuff.

So why do we love it? We smother our vegetables with it, drown our popcorn in it — even a humble piece of bread is elevated once you slather on some quality butter. It’s not just the taste that we love (which, quite honestly, is rather a simple one).

One theory behind our love for butter states that it’s all about emulsions. So, what’s an emulsion? Generally, in the culinary world, it’s simply a food item made up of components that normally don’t mix very well. For example, mayonnaise (another big favorite) is made up of egg yolks, oil and vinegar. Just throw all these ingredients in a bowl and you’ll see that they’re not exactly blending on their own. If you get down to the nitty-gritty science, butter is also an emulsion, made of molecules that don’t cooperate. Other emulsion foods include salad dressings, ice cream, chocolate, hollandaise sauce — all things that we love! The human taste buds adore emulsified foods.

In addition, humans just like fat content. It releases pleasure sensors in the brain and butter just so happens to be about 80 percent fat by weight. In many ways, it’s quite similar to ice cream, though much less sweet, obviously. That caloric density from all that fat also releases endorphins. In fact, butter is one of the most calorie-dense foods ever created. For human bodies that are still working on a biological system that tells us we need the most energy possible from the least food possible, butter just makes sense!

Ever wondered why margarines just aren’t the same? One reason (among many) is that we love food that melts in our mouths. When someone says “melt in your mouth,” your initial response is probably a good one, right? We like anything that “melts in your mouth” — candy, pastries, even steak has been described with this little phrase, all in a great way. Margarine just doesn’t melt the same way butter does. Leave a stick of butter in the sun and it’ll start to melt. Leave a tub of margarine in the sun for three days and it’s not going to change that much.

While scientists have yet to come up with why exactly this is, humans also have a high affinity for the smell of butter. Maybe that’s why movie theaters pump that agonizingly good smell into the lobby. On many levels, it’s been discovered that we actually like the scent of butter in the same way we love the scent of vanilla. However, unlike vanilla, there’s yet to be a good excuse for butter-scented lotion.

It’s not just you that thinks you love butter; it’s a fact that your body does really actually love it. Your psyche even rewards you for eating it! Next time you start salivating at the smell of movie popcorn or the aroma of melting butter while making your favorite dish, don’t feel bad. Your body’s just doing what it’s supposed to do — appreciating that calorie-dense, emulsified flavor.