Every morning I wake up and make myself a toasted bagel with butter and avocado. Although it may taste delicious, spreading the cold, hard butter makes the experience a little less enjoyable.
I know room temperature butter is easier to spread, but I just have trouble believing that dairy can be left on the counter.
It turns out that I am wrong as the USDA listed butter as the only dairy food that is safe to keep in a power outage.
Milk and butter are actually made very differently, making butter less likely to attract harmful bacteria. Butter is about 80 percent fat, which makes its water content much lower and therefore less likely to have bacteria when left out. Butter is also often made with pasteurized milk, which makes it less prone to bacteria growth.
If you buy salted butter you can leave it out on the counter as it wards off bacteria.
If you buy unsalted butter it is best to leave inside the fridge.
Butter stored in a tray with a top should stay good for about a week. The key is to not expose it to oxygen or light.