Total US butter consumption

As Americans have rediscovered butter with the enthusiasm of a nation that spent thirty years being wrong about dietary fat, they have simultaneously embraced the Instant Pot with the fervor of people who believe that any meal can be improved by pressure. The correlation is 0.957 across eleven years, which suggests that the same cultural moment that rehabilitated butter also decided that cooking should involve a device with more settings than a spaceship. One imagines Julia Child smiling, and then being confused by a digital display.

US butter consumption reversed its decades-long decline around 2010 as nutritional science shifted away from low-fat orthodoxy and toward the rehabilitation of saturated fats—per capita consumption grew from about 4.9 pounds to over 6.2 pounds by 2022. The Instant Pot market exploded during the same period, growing from nearly nothing to a peak of about 800 million dollars in revenue as the device became the kitchen gadget of the 2010s, driven by Amazon Prime Day sales, Facebook cooking communities, and the promise of a pot roast in 45 minutes. Both trends are expressions of the same food culture shift: Americans cooking more at home, with more confidence, using more butter, in smarter appliances. The pandemic accelerated both trends as home cooking became a necessity rather than a hobby.

Eleven years of butter and Instant Pots rising together is a story about a nation that simultaneously decided fat is fine and cooking should be faster. Both trends are real, both are driven by cultural shifts in how Americans think about food, and neither caused the other. The butter melts, the pressure builds, and the kitchen smells better than it did in the low-fat era.