# Butter or margarine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 28, 2012, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637 "2012-07-28T02:06:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![oreally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ab992/32.png) [@oreally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oreally)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/41 "2012-07-29T01:53:33Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > At first, there was butter. > Then, oh butter is high in saturated fats. Eat margarine! > Oops margarine has trans fats. Back to butter! Welcome to the brilliance that is medical “expertise.” :rolleyes: Eggs are good for you! No wait…eggs are bad for you! No wait…kinda both! etc etc ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/42 "2012-07-29T02:06:26Z")
I really am shocked at the poll results. I use margarine, have no real issue with the taste, assume it is healthier than butter (perhaps I am sadly mistaken), and for a bachelor who can’t possibly go through one single stick of butter before it goes bad (maybe it doesn’t), while margarine can keep for a long time, I thought there would be more people on the margarine side, maybe 60/40 butter, at worst. ---
**Author:** ![RoniaBorkason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9dc877/32.png) [@RoniaBorkason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoniaBorkason)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/43 "2012-07-29T02:10:34Z")
For taste alone, I prefer butter, but in the summer, when I can’t leave the butter dish out, I use margarine or a whipped oil and butter spread, so it’s soft from the fridge. I always had margarine growing up, and the fact that it wept water grossed me out. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/44 "2012-07-29T02:42:03Z")
I think we had some margarine in our house _once_ in 19 years… ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/45 "2012-07-29T02:51:16Z")
For a spread, I use _Move Over, Butter_ which is made partially of whipped buttermilk. For cooking… Well, I don’t cook, but I vastly prefer food cooked with actual butter. ---
**Author:** ![StuffLikeThatThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@StuffLikeThatThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StuffLikeThatThere)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/46 "2012-07-29T03:06:13Z")
Butter. I really dislike margarine and keep it only for recipes that specifically call for it and for when I bake for a friend with a dairy allergy. I gave my red velvet cake recipe to a neighbor so she could make it for her daughter’s birthday. She called me late the night before the birthday panicking because the (homemade, cooked, and freaking fantastic) icing wasn’t setting up. I talked her through several possible solutions and finally realized she had used Country Crock instead of butter in the icing. A whole cup. She couldn’t imagine it would make a difference. That stuff wasn’t setting up if she fiddled with it till Jesus came back. After I recovered from my stunned silence, I told her I’d bring her some butter so she could start over. She didn’t have any in the house. Oy vey. ---
**Author:** ![emu2swan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@emu2swan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emu2swan)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/47 "2012-07-29T03:15:22Z")
I read somewhere that bugs won’t eat margarine, that’s my yardstick. Now I’ve never tested this but it sounds about right. Margarine is horrid stuff. I’m not saying I’ll eat anything a bug eats, no dog crap or road kill for me and no margarine either. ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/48 "2012-07-29T03:20:01Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > That’s a myth promoted by the global Margarine & Petroleum byproduct institute. It’s not a petroleum byproduct though. It’s actually made from ground up kittens, and all the workers at the margarine plant refuse to tip at restaurants. All of the owners of maragine companies oppose gay marriage, and are staunch supporters of Sarah Palin and George Bush. Those are the established facts. They’re also suspected of using poor grammar and punctuation, and resurrecting zombie threads. True. ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/49 "2012-07-29T03:22:56Z")
Real butter. When I was a kid, we had cows and made our own, and I still have the family hand crank butter churn. Fancy European butter for baking, since about 10-15 years ago most non-specialty US butter got watery, regular US butter for general use. Sometimes I’ll cook using olive oil or coconut oil, but butter is the number one spread. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/50 "2012-07-29T03:30:00Z")
> [@oreally](#): > > Welcome to the brilliance that is medical “expertise.” :rolleyes: > > Eggs are good for you! > No wait…eggs are bad for you! > No wait…kinda both! > > etc etc With this kind of thinking, we’d still be hunting with sharpened rocks. While experts with agendas will push their agendas, there are plenty of independent, peer-reviewed experiments that are still constantly learning new things about how our body interacts with the things put into it. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/51 "2012-07-29T03:38:57Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > With this kind of thinking, we’d still be hunting with sharpened rocks. While experts with agendas will push their agendas, there are plenty of independent, peer-reviewed experiments that are still constantly learning new things about how our body interacts with the things put into it. Right. And even though they’ve been wrong a dozen times before, this time they’ve got it. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/52 "2012-07-29T05:02:46Z")
Butter, except for a few cookie recipes. And I actually associate margarine with poverty - one of the very first things that changed when my parents started making better money was switching to butter. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/53 "2012-07-29T05:13:55Z")
I use (canola oil) margarine because: (a) it’s cheaper (b) it’s what I’m used to © I have uncles who grow canola. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/54 "2012-07-29T05:18:14Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > (c) I have uncles who grow canola. Does this mean rape month is starting? ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/55 "2012-07-29T05:23:12Z")
Something else, as in ‘Both’. I have different uses for each. And I like them both. To me, it’s kind of like saying “Jam or jelly?” Except you can make sammiches with either of those, but for baking, I really want butter. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/56 "2012-07-29T05:25:01Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Does this mean rape month is starting? :p:p I remember when canola oil first ‘came out’. I had worked restaurants a while, and one place I worked at had large cans of canola oil. I was like ‘wtf is this’. Somehow I figured out it was just rapeseed oil, which at that point I’d never heard of, and I went 'Oh, yeah, I’d change that name, too". 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/57 "2012-07-29T06:35:20Z")
I voted “Neither” but that’s not really accurate. “Both” would have been closer. I almost always use olive oil or canola oil when cooking. I occasionally use butter for baking and for frying eggs. I keep some margarine in the fridge - I like that it’s more spreadable for toast (which I don’t eat very often) and it’s what I grew up with so I’m used to it. But really, I don’t use very much butter _or_ margarine - I probably go through a stick of butter every couple months, and a small tub of margarine maybe one or two a year (has a long shelf life in the fridge). Ever since I learned about trans fats many years ago, I don’t get “regular” margarine. I get Becel with Olive Oil ([link](http://www.becel.ca/en/becel/becelproducts/becel-with-bertolli-olive-oil.aspx)), which has no trans fats and has omega 3’s. Looking online, it looks like Becel is a name used in a bunch of countries including Canada, and it’s sold under the name Promise in the US. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/58 "2012-07-29T08:04:38Z")
Butter for eating, margarine for cooking. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/59 "2012-07-29T11:45:58Z")
If I recall correctly, Paul, who used to tango in Paris, much preferred real butter. mmm ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637/60 "2012-07-29T12:26:18Z")
The absolute only thing I ever use margarine for it chicken wing sauce. It’s just got the right consistency that butter lacks. Otherwise, butter for literally every other application I can think of. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-or-margarine/629637.md?page=4)