Brummer and Brown-is it more chemicals than natural

October 16, 2010 9:42 AM

Too good to be true-Brummel and Brown?

Is anyone out there familiar with a butter-like product called Brummel and Brown? Manufactured by Unilever, they claim to be "natural" and yogurt based and have 5 grams of fat per serving (compared with 11 for butter). I think this sounds too good to be true and have a hard time believing them. It seems like there must be some catch. Does anyone out there have any better founded reason either to believe their claims or not to trust them?

posted by bostonman to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Their nutrition facts and ingredients are online. My interpretation is that the gelatin holds it together, the yogurt adds a "dairy" flavor. Whether this tastes like "butter" to you is a matter of personal taste.
posted by gimonca at 9:53 AM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't doubt the health claims, and we regularly use Brummel and Brown on toast, etc., but it really doesn't have the creaminess of butter, etc. In other words, it's a reasonable substitute which has less fat, but isn't as tasty.
posted by JMOZ at 9:58 AM on October 16, 2010

Or to put it another way, half the volume of what you're getting would be yogurt and liquid held in suspension by the gelatin, which is how they get half the calories of butter or margarine when measured by volume.

Note that this makes it fairly useless in baking, it's only a "spread". (Same could probably be said for all their competitors, too--most lowcal or other unusual "spreads" in the butter/dairy aisle are only useful as spreads.)
posted by gimonca at 9:59 AM on October 16, 2010

Note, too, that one of the fats they substitute in, and a component of that 45 cal/tbsp, is palm oil. How healthy or unhealthy is this related to butterfat? I'm not up on the latest studies, I'll defer to other answerers.
posted by gimonca at 10:04 AM on October 16, 2010

Palm oil is unsaturated, which makes it definitely more healthy than butterfat. I personally adore Brummel and Brown - it's my favorite margarine-type spread.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:17 AM on October 16, 2010

It tastes just like margarine to me. We've used it for a decade.
posted by PSB at 11:59 AM on October 16, 2010

Palm oil is okay from a health standpoint, but appalling from an environmental standpoint. Tropical rainforest is being cleared to make room for palm oil plantations, species are being lost, death, destruction, doom, and all the rest.
posted by ErikaB at 12:27 PM on October 16, 2010

Palm oil actually isn't all that okay from a health standpoint -- many people, including myself, cannot process it properly and are subsequently left with hardcore acne and stomach woes after eating it. It's a huge bummer for me because it cuts out a lot of organic cookies and sweets from my pantry. I think that there really isn't a substitute for real butter; you just need to get used to using very little at a time. Have you ever tried Challenge's Unsalted Whipped Butter? Mmmm. My heart be still. Check out its nutritional facts:

Serving Size: 1 Tbsp (9g), Servings Per Container: 25, Calories per serving: 70, Calories from Fat: 70, Total Fat 7g, Saturated Fat 5g, Trans Fat: 0g, Cholesterol: 20mg, Sodium: 0g, Total Carbohydrate: 0g, Protein: 0g, Vitamin A: 8%.

Ingredients: Pasteurized Cream (Milk), Natural Flavoring.
posted by patronuscharms at 1:11 PM on October 16, 2010

notice it says "made with" natural yogurt. they aren't claiming that the product is natural...just that it does contain natural yogurt. i don't think that natural is a regulated claim by any food agencies. notice that the gelatin and yogurt come after the "salt" in the ingredient statement. the salt is probably not at a very high percentage (unless it tastes really salty...i don't eat the stuff myself but see that it is only 90 mg of sodium per serving which doesn't seem extremely high) which means that there is a very low percentage of gelatin and yogurt is even less. the product looks to me like it is basically a tub margarine and they added a bit of yogurt just so they could say "contains yogurt." the gelatin is put in at a very low percentage to add some body. also, they are getting a lot of the butter flavor from the artificial flavor (my guess, at least).
posted by catseatcheese at 3:30 PM on October 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

You can very easily make a similar spread yourself: let some butter come to room temperature, and mix in about an equal amount of plain 0% fat Greek-style strained yogurt. It's quite good, and less nutritionally devastating than pure butter. Vanilla yogurt would probably be interesting too.
posted by Corvid at 4:43 PM on October 16, 2010

I've tasted this stuff, and personally, I think it's disgusting. Butter, in moderate amounts, isn't "bad" for you. YMMV.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:09 PM on October 16, 2010

IIRC, it used to be made with some hydrogenated oil, but just enough that they could get away with less than half a gram per serving. When I realized that, I quit using it and switched to a small amount of butter, olive oil, or vegetable oil, depending on the application.
posted by wintersweet at 10:41 PM on October 16, 2010

Butter is food. It actually has nutritional components in it that are beneficial. Everything in moderation.

I'm looking forward to trying corvid's suggestion when i find grocery-store butter on sale... i'm not willing to sacrifice any of my French butter to an experiment :-)

This wasn't my question, but I really appreciate all of your answers!
posted by ChefJoAnna at 6:02 PM on October 17, 2010

I really like B&B and even prefer it to butter in some instances. Butter often feels so greasy to me but B&B seems creamy and rich. It's certainly a different experience and if you love butter, it won't be an adequate substitute.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 8:00 PM on October 17, 2010