Butter, The Real Thing

When one of my daughters was about 12 she came home after visiting a friend and very excitedly told me about her new discovery “margarine.”  “It’s this wonderful thing you can use instead of butter” and she went on to extol the many virtues of margarine.  I listened to her (and tried not to laugh) and then explained to her that butter was the real thing and that margarine was just a substitute for butter.  I then tried to explain to her that butter tasted better and generally was better for baking and cooking.  She looked at me like I really didn’t know anything.  I have thought about this conversation over the years about how some things that others have or use seem to be better than what we have, and how we are easily fooled to believe that substitutes or new things are better than the original or old ways of doing things.  Of course, some new things are better but just because they’re new or different doesn’t mean better.