An inexplicable butter shortage in Norway that authorities and the media are blaming on the growing popularity of low-carb, high-fat diets has left the wealthy Scandinavian country scrambling to find other sources of the precious cooking ingredient. After all, the Christmas season is upon us, which means that millions of Norwegians need this natural cooking fat to produce a multitude of butter-rich baked goods that have long been a staple of the Norwegian Christmas tradition.

But it looks like many Norwegians may have to skip the baked goods this year after all, since the butter shortfall is expected to last until at least January 2012. In the meantime, many stores throughout Norway have reportedly had to put up signs explaining why there is no butter on their shelves, which has led to an increase in online butter purchases and even butter smuggling.

Norway has high tariffs that discourage imports of things like butter, which is why some people have been compelled to try to smuggle it in from other countries. Officials allegedly stopped a Russian man at the Norwegian-Swedish border, for instance, who was trying to smuggle nearly 200 pounds of butter from the nearby country.

‘Margarine just isn’t the same,’ said one […]