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Comment by Freak_NL | Hacker News Reader

This article makes me wonder about the shapes butter is sold in worldwide.

Everyone who ever looked up a recipe online knows Americans use those 113g 'sticks' of butter (this seems to be the exotic option), but it looks like most regions use bricks/slabs.

The Japanese ones look to be standardized on 200g.

A lot, if not most, of Europe seems to do 250g bricks, which often have a printed measure on the inside of the wrapper to help you cut off 50g pieces for baking.

Canadian butter seems to come in huge unwieldy blocks of 454g (four US 'sticks').

Any other form factors in common use?

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Japanese butter actually comes in many sizes, and unlike what this article says, it comes both in slabs and sticks.

You can get a 100g stick, which has pre-cut slots every 10g. This one is easy enough to break evenly with a normal knife: https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/ddmp-mmpj/imgs/5/4/549fd611.jpg

This is not very far from the standard American 4oz stick, as far as I understand, and for most Japanese households it might be enough.

Beyond that size you can commonly find 150g and 200g slabs in supermarkets, and huge 450g slabs in bulk-oriented supermarkets (like Hanamasa or Gyomu) and specialty shops (like Tomiz). I tend to use butter quite regularly for cooking so I'm generally buying the 450g ones, as it is quite expensive here.

I guess the reason many people here mention they've never seen these kind of tools in Japan, is that you wouldn't find them in a normal house. Relatively few people bake at home here (or even OWN an oven) and butter is mostly used for toasts. If you have an insatiable kodawari (pedantry) for nicely cut butter cubes, I guess you could just go ahead and buy the pre-cut sticks.

I am using the wire grill cutter myself though, so I know it exists. And I'm pretty sure that these different cutters are heavily used in cafe's restaurants, which often serve butter toasts. They tend to serve fancy-looking toasts like this one: https://storage.googleapis.com/mbs-recipe-and-restaurant-ass...

Yes, the toast bread is quite thick (though usually not as much as this), and the butter is frequently served as a perfectly slice on top. So perhaps having tools for perfectly slicing butter in right angle out of bulk-size slabs is not so surprising.

We buy 200g (table, in tub) and 250g (cooking, as slab, with wrapper measure) but it looks like there's a wide variety https://www.coop.ch/fr/nourriture/produits-laitiers-oeufs/be... of which I'd say the other I most commonly see are 15g (single service).

Edit: looks like you all have more than 250g and 500g, but not as much more: https://www.ah.nl/producten/zuivel-eieren/boter

Yeah, in the Netherlands it is almost exclusively 250g bricks (excepting tubs for spreadable butter blends and margarine of course). Variations exist mainly for high end butter and bulk packaging.

In the states we've been getting more and more 'European' butter thats sold in 227g slabs.

I do prefer the sticks, they seem to keep a little longer and make baking easier.

Yeah I see a variety of forms. Usually sticks which I prefer also but also "two stick"ish and "four stick"ish slabs. I also see logs of rolled butter, which are about three sticks worth or so rolled into a cylinder. I also see square slabs, maybe the mass of a stick or so, and sometimes tubs. The tubs are convenient for spreading but not as much for baking.

I usually prefer the sticks, as you don't have to cut the larger slabs.

In Canada we have both a slab of 4 sticks, but also 4 individual sticks in a cardboard box. I like that one a lot, since a stick of butter is too little and a slab the size of 4 sticks is too much. 4 sticks in one pack is perfect.

As a side note though, it’s not just packaging. I’m originally from Germany, and we don’t use salted butter there. In Canada it’s all salted butter by default.

You definitely get the sticks in Cape Town, South Africa (along with packets of ham that say “edible” in big writing on the front). The butter is also ungodlily expensive, and margarine is in very common use

A package is made of ham?

I'm a total convert to "spreadable" butter, which is blended with vegetable oil to reduce viscosity and sold in tubs of 250/500g size.

Butter is already spreadable if you don’t refrigerate it.

probably less healthy than real butter. "Vegetable oil" is almost always canola oil, which is more appropriate in your automobile crankcase than in your body. Temperate oils in general aren't good for you: they evolved to have their nutrients available at colder temperatures for a germinating seed to grow in the spring. They rancidify readily as it gets warmer.

[citation needed]

I would love to see some peer-reviewed sources on those claims, specifically that canola oil is actively bad for you, that "temperate oils" are bad for you in general, and the rancidification claim (I keep mine in a cupboard and I have literally never had it go rancid).

I cook mostly with (actual genuine) extra-virgin olive oil or peanut oil, since I prefer the smell and taste over the more commonly used canola/sunflower oil, and yes you can fry in olive oil just fine. But I still want to see some credible research that supports your claims.

Edit: here's a good article with plenty of citations that strongly disagrees with your claims: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2015/04/13/ask-...

That's OK. I'll let you do your own clerical work on this topic.

A couple of interesting points to consider: refined, bleached, deodorized oil such as canola oil is highly processed. Your link warns about highly processed oil in general. Considering how little we seem to be able to nail down scientifically the nutritional value of fat, the focus of the article around the role of fat in diet has a level of certitude I find suspect.

> Your link warns about highly processed oil in general.

No, it specifically says that there are concerns about them and goes on to explain why those concerns are generally misplaced, e.g. in relation to the use of hexane and the amount of trans fat present.

It also explains that the levels of trans fats are higher in animal fats, especially in beef fat and milk/butter, which you conveniently chose to ignore.

As you can also see, there are references at the bottom of the page, for your further edification.

In contrast, you have provided absolutely no references to your claims, and you apparently refuse to do so.

I will leave you to enjoy your highly refined, bleached, deodorized oil. I'm sure it's good for you.

A common form factor here in Brazil is a plastic cup, for instance https://www.itambe.com.br/portal/produto/manteiga-com-sal-po... (that one is 200g, there's also a 500g cup, and a 200g slab which is easier to use when cooking).

There are two stick form factors in the US, the east coast long skinny stick and the west coast short fat stick. Each of them are 4oz.

All form factors are wrong. They expose the butter to air.

The proper form factor would be a cartridge for a caulking gun. The extra leverage provided by the mechanism means that cold butter works fine, and the protection from air means that warmth doesn't cause much loss of quality.

Israel: The most common form used to be 100g slabs wrapped in paper (with lines printed for 25g blocks) for locally produced butter. Recently I'm seeing more of the 200g slabs, which are the same size except double the height. Also more varieties of imported butter.

In Finland it seems the most common sizes for butter are 200g and 500g, in the UK I'd be more used to 250/500g.

(Wrapped in paper, not in a box.)

454g is one pound, which is a very natural bulk unit for butter in English customary measures, so it's not too surprising that it survives in Canada. We Americans may have contributed to the survival of the size, but I'm sure we didn't introduce it.

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