HISTORY: Until 1955, Most Americans Spread Whale Blubber On Their Toast Every Morning

HISTORY: WHALE ON TOAST 

"I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!"

 For Decades, Many Americans Didn't Eat Butter 

Instead, They Happily Spread Whale Blubber On Their Toast 

Americans love fat. Here's a sample of various 
edible fats that have been eaten historically.
(Library of Congress)

Let's cut to the chase. This is a story about the time in our history when most people's table margarine was made of whale fat. Whale oil margarine became popular by World War II, after whale oil was replaced by petroleum as a fuel, and before whaling was banned except for cultural reasons, as in Alaska. Making margarine with all that blubber was a smart idea. Americans loved their whale blubber margarine – and so did Scandinavians and Germans. Apparently, though, the French (who are more discerning about their foods) didn't. They preferred butter. 

When people from Outside think of Alaska, there's always a curiosity about what people here eat. Visitors wonder about eating whale, and about 'muktuk'. Visitors ponder the concept of 'Eskimo Ice Cream', made of seal or moose fat and berries.  

These high-fat traditional Alaskan dishes, incorporating mammalian blubber from northern wildlife, seem highly exotic and unfamiliar. 

Eating whale blubber is something most outsiders believe they would never encounter themselves. Surely, someone from Chicago, or San Francisco, or Des Moines could live their entire lives and never find whale fat on their breakfast plate.  

But that hasn't always been true. Almost every American over a certain age once ate whale blubber every single day, as a normal part of their diet, and never thought a thing about it. 

As children, America's boomers were served – along with their Jello, and Kool-Aid, and corn flakes – whale blubber for breakfast, lunch and dinner. All the time. 

(So RFK Jr.'s idea of promoting beef tallow in the American diet –  incorporating the fats of large mammals into our daily meals – is actually not that new. We've pretty much been there, and done that.) 

Beef tallow – picked up and then abandoned on a Panko shelf
by a Costco shopper – in July, 2025. This was not long after tallow 
was promoted by RFK Jr. for human consumption as a desirable and healthy fat.
 (Photo, Country Journal)

In the 1800s, before the world turned from whales as a source of fuel for lighting city street lights, most whales caught at sea were used commercially. Then petroleum was discovered in Pennsylvania, in 1859. Global energy sources shifted to where they are now – the ground.   

After petroleum products took over as our main fuel sources, there was still all that valuable whale blubber available. Post-war Americans were highly responsive to new ideas and embraced every new thing that came along. 

A process called hydrogenation was invented. It turned whale fat solid, took away most of the unfamiliar taste and smell, and left behind a mound of reconstituted blubber that looked something like butter and could be shaped into a butter-like cube. You could spread it on your toast, and it was cheaper than butter.

Did Americans know their morning margarine was actually whale? Probably not. They most likely didn't realize, either, that whale fat was also a major ingredient at the time in ice cream.

Still, whale fat for breakfast wasn't all that appealing in some ways. In the post-war era, America's whale blubber margarine came to your home looking like a block – or, sometimes, a big tub – of pure white lard.

To help make it more palatable when you spread it on your toast, a handy little packet of yellow food coloring came with it, for the customer to stir in so it looked more like something that came from a cow instead of a whale. 

Instructions in 1948 for coloring margarine. On this ad, the margarine container
shows the manufacturers of this brand had moved on to providing "vegetable" margarine.
Whale oil margarine had a similar coloring system to make it yellow. (Wikipedia)