blueey

Okay, I've heard that butter is bad for you, and margarine is healthy. BUT then I've also heard that margarine is secretly deadly and evil, and that butter is healthy after all. What?? Does anybody know what the latest verdict on this is?

FourBear

I think they are pretty even, with their respective pros and cons. I think there is an episode of Food Network's "Good Eats" devoted entirely to this debate.

I personally prefer the taste of margarine for many things (like on toast), and use I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and Country Crock. I do use butter when I cook, though.

penguinmama

Personally, I'd go with something God created before something man cooked up. A researcher once said about vegetable oil, "I could get oil out of this RUG, too, but I wouldn't expect you to EAT it." We stick with the real thing

FourBear

Well, technically, man did cook up a method to make butter, hehe. But I see what you are saying.

Has anyone tried the yogurt-based butter-like spread? It's really delicious!

Spamalot

Neither one of them is all that good for you. However, margarine has traditionally been made with trans fats which are worse for you than the animal fat in butter. It lowers your good cholesterol and raises the bad. That's the latest research anyway. I've used the yogurt-based butter spread and it is definintely good. However, you have to made sure that it isn't made with partially hydrogenated anything. That's trans fat.

riskey58

I have always used butter. Whwn growing up at hame my parents always used butter. And I just got used to the taste of it.

Taggart

We've switched back to butter from margarine. But I also use extra virgin olive oil on bread and for cooking more and more now.

hardcase

This is true as per the urban legends pages. Read on

Interesting information.....

Pass the butter ~ ~ ~ ~ This is interesting.

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatt en turkeys. When it killed
the
turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a
payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this
product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food
appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in
place of butter.

How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings.

DO YOU KNOW...the difference between margarine and butter?

Read on to the end...gets very interesting!

Both have the same amount of calories. Butter is slightly higher in
saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the

same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other
foods. Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few only
because
they are added! Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance

the flavors of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for
less than 100 years.


And now, for Margarine..

Very high in trans fatty acids. Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and
lowers
HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five fold. Lowers quality of breast
milk. Decreases immune response.
Decreases insulin response.

And here's the most disturbing fact.... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY
INTERESTING!



Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC..

This fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and
anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing
the molecular structure of the substance).
[color="Red"]GO TO THIS LINK AND READ THE REALLY BAD STUFF ABOUT MARGARINE!!!!!!
[url=

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/butter.asp

Melizzy

Don't know, but I am a full on butter eater!

Stephanie2377

Interesting information! We use Smart Balance in order to get away from the transfats and the palm kernel oil.
I haven't ever thought of buying pure butter. Does it have transfats in it?