column today from the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader:
And yet now there’s all the hulaboo about “transfats”- were they right about margarine all along?
You can always tell when journalists have been watching QI.
???
AFAIK we don’t have QI in the States.
Was this featured on one of their shows?
Yeah, they did a fairly long bit on it a few weeks ago. At least I think it was QI… Hopefully someone can back me up on that.
And just because QI’s in Britain and we’re in the US doesn’t mean it can’t be seen over here.
Aside from someone copying the show and bringing it over – where? That was my point in linking to the article – it doesn’t list any US venues.
AFAIC, they weren’t wrong. Margarine is heinous no matter what color it is.
It’s all over the internet. You can find the vast majority of the episodes on youtube.
Ahh. Many thanks.
So the Beef Council was in control even then?:dubious:
I believe it was in one of Pollans books which I recently read - either “The Omnivore’s Dilemna” or maybe “In Defense of Food”, that he discusses the history of oleo/butter as a negative example of western food processing/regulation/diets…
The idea that “artificial”, processed food substances are legally considered the nutritional equivalent of their “natural” counterparts, and need not be labelled as “imitation.”
An interesting theory which I believe has some merit.
My mother or grandmother told me once that she was in charge of mixing the coloring in with the margarine when she was a girl…margarine was sold as a white substance, with a yellow coloring agent packaged with it. Margarine could NOT be sold as an artificially colored substance.
Interestingly, in Little House in the Big Woods, Wilder mentions how the winter butter was colorless, and Ma Ingalls simmered a grated carrot in milk, and added that to the cream before she started churning. So the concept of coloring butter and butterlike substances was known back then, though I don’t know how widespread the practice was.
Pink? Was it ever pink? 
I think Quebec has a similar law, that says margarine can’t have colour added. I don’t know if it’s still on the books, but as of about 20 years ago it was. (IIRC)
When we lived in New Brunswick in the late sixties and early seventies, margarine was sold with a yellow dye capsule for home mixing, as a way of (sorta) circumventing legislation against selling margarine coloured in such a way as to resemble butter.
I used to think that this was a product of an the incomprehensible stupidity of the past which we are thankfully clear of now, except that currently you can not legally purchase “soy cheese,” ostensibly because this would be intolerably confusing for consumers – instead, we have “soy loaf.”
I would not complain at all if all of the members the various dairy councils were churned until they reached homogeneous consistency and then spread on toast.
Quebec’s law on margarine colour was repealed less than two years ago. This CBC article gives a detailed discussion of the history of margarine laws in Canada.
My grandmother grew up in Quebec, but lived in Ontario for the last several decades of her life. She refused to eat white margarine, and on one family trip to her home town in the Gaspe region (when the Quebec law on colours was still in effect), we had to make an excursion to New Brunswick in search of coloured margarine for her. This was no small matter; at my last check she had five tubs of margarine in her refrigerator. 
Still are, actually 
I thought “cheese product” was an acceptable label for such a thing. My sister has a packet of the stuff, lemme go look.
Runs to fridge
Ah, it appears the package says “cheese food alternative.” So I guess you CAN have the word “cheese” on the label, but it has to be cushioned with other words.
“Soy loaf” sounds far more confusing than “soy cheese product” or “cheese food alternative.”
“butterine” is still a better name than “I can’t believe it’s not butter”.