OLEO IS BUTTER, RIGHT?

The things we believe. Truth or dare we ask? Maybe it all comes down to timing.

I remember my first food fight like it was yesterday.  I am 23 years old - on a date with my future husband of 42 years.  Seated in a nice restaurant about to butter bread.  The details on how this argument began are a wee bit fuzzy but it came down to his question: 

“Beth - you know there is a difference between ‘butter’ and Oleo, right?”

I vehemently argued - ”No - there is NO DIFFERENCE - OLEO IS BUTTER!”

My poor future hubbs never stood a chance as he patiently tried to explain to 23 year old me that of course there is a HUGE DIFFERENCE.  Being 23 from my nearly 70 years is this cocktail napkin..

I had the stubborn 20ish mental madness that wasn’t exactly open to questions.

Know this argument ended with me STORMing out of the restaurant.  Rage in every direction. How could I NOT KNOW this simple dietary fact?  I was a graduate student in college for crying out loud.  I worked in a 5 star restaurant to pay for graduate school, rent and not much food.  How did it escape me to not know the difference?   

What was worse:

• The abject shame of not knowing butter?  

• Or the burgeoning truth of knowing how I got there? 

Truth or Dare to ask?  For the first time, I took the dare. 

After not speaking to anyone about this ever, I began a lifelong journey to question normals.  Perhaps this was my first yoga practice - sitting in the muck of it all.  OLEO IS BUTTER was a rabbit hole heading straight to hell and the time was now.  

This takes some aggressive unpacking.  And a generous helping of compassion, which doesn’t go down nearly as easily as shame.  

Being the middle of 9 kids isn’t easy on a good day in the 60’s. But our particular landscape was abject poverty and abuse.  Food and eating were just 1 area of the trauma pile.  Poverty, terror, secrets, isolation and shame were my normal and my culture.  

We don’t tend to question these things until we feel safe.   And certainly a cornerstone rule in abusive homes is:

DON’T TELL 

Don’t tell means don’t think or question things.  Given that rule, it makes sense that of course - OLEO IS BUTTER….

From as early as I can remember - the cupboards were not particularly full or interesting.  In general, food was a battle to see who got to it first.  We survived thanks to the never enough Food Stamp and Government issued feed.   

For example:

• OLEOMARGARINE - the argument that started my revolution and it does not require refrigeration.   Butter was most likely too expensive or possibly didn’t qualify.

  

• Yellow cheese - also needs zero refrigeration - available in 500 lb bricks and can also be used to build things… 

  

• Industrial size containers of vegetables, peanut butter,  cereal

• 800 count slices of White bread

• Dehydrated instant coffee

• Sandwich meat substitutes, hamburger, hot dogs

• Milk from a milk truck that sat outside in a tin container 

Apparently these milk box containers are worth $$ these days - all I know is that it didn’t count as refrigeration.  Mainly because our milk sat outside on a porch most of the day until someone remembered to put it somewhere cold. If the fridge was working, that is.

My poor mother barely recovers from all the pregnancy and birth traumas while locked into marriage with a drunk abusing husband.  Her cooking and householding existed in chaos.  She had no skills for this type of industrial strength productivity and who would?  So we weren’t exactly getting educated on the difference between oleo and butter to say the least.

This blind and barren food landscape was totally normal.   

Did serving restaurant food or working on a Master’s Degree make me question my food  normal?   Nope - not for a blink of the eye.  Not ever. Until the OLEO argument of the century…

I stumbled on brewed coffee with chocolate milk in college.  A revolutionary game changer.  But seriously even that didn’t make me think twice about my mom’s instant coffee made with warm tap water.  Criminey - she didn’t even have time to boil water in a pot to pour over the instant crystals….Who would question that?

But the oleo feud started something bigger than my shame.  It dared me to question my truths, my poverty mentality, my taste palate.   No wonder it meant a hissy fit of galactic proportions.  My long-standing denial growing up as an abused child was not going to work anymore. 

It was time to bust out from my force field of denial and shame.  Who knew butter had such a lifeforce?

So as I do now - a yoga pose or 50 will help soothe the edges, quell the shame and open this old heart to compassion.  I am certainly not alone in these experiences and that gives huge comfort.  Any old pose will do: 

 Quiet and comfortable - soothing the edges...

Give it a try ~ You never know - it could go down just as well as butter and the time is always right now!

Om Shanti Love,

Yogi Beth