You can avoid the fat issue altogether by livening up your morning toast with jam or preserves, which are fat-free. If neither option is appealing, you can trim some calories and fat by spreading butter more thinly or by using one of the better lower-fat spreads. Regular butter, by definition, must be made from milk, cream, or both, with salt and coloring optional. It must be at least 80 percent milk fat by weight. Two of the three premium butters we tested, Keller's European Style Unsalted and Celles sur Belle Unsalted , were excellent, but so were two nonpremium products, Land O Lakes Unsalted and Challenge Unsalted.
Whipped butter is regular butter with air or inert gas whipped in.
Light butter has no more than half the fat of butter and may contain water and other ingredients. This shaves the calories per serving to about 50 and fat to about 6 grams but sacrifices a lot in the process. We found flavor and texture problems with the four light butters we tested, which were the lowest rated of all the butters in this report. In fact, some of the margarines and spreads more closely resembled regular butter in flavor and texture. Regular margarine, like butter, must be at least 80 percent fat by weight, but the fat is usually vegetable oil.