MORE BUTTER-BLOGGING: So we ran out of the New Zealand butter that won the taste test a while back, and it still was showing as out of stock on Amazon. At a reader’s recommendation, I tried this Amish roll butter instead, though I didn’t fully grasp just how much butter a 2 lb. roll is. . .

The Insta-Daughter — who, delightfully, made me pancakes this morning — likes this stuff better; I find it a bit saltier than I like, but it’s quite good. And I imagine Nina Planck would approve.

UPDATE: No sooner did I post this than I ran across an interesting essay by Michael Pollan on food and nutrition:

But after several decades of nutrient-based health advice, rates of cancer and heart disease in the U.S. have declined only slightly (mortality from heart disease is down since the ’50s, but this is mainly because of improved treatment), and rates of obesity and diabetes have soared.

No one likes to admit that his or her best efforts at understanding and solving a problem have actually made the problem worse, but that’s exactly what has happened in the case of nutritionism. Scientists operating with the best of intentions, using the best tools at their disposal, have taught us to look at food in a way that has diminished our pleasure in eating it while doing little or nothing to improve our health. Perhaps what we need now is a broader, less reductive view of what food is, one that is at once more ecological and cultural.

Read the whole thing.