# Butter Vs Margarine fact list - true? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 19, 2005, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054 "2005-04-19T14:33:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/21 "2005-04-19T22:23:55Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > As far as “one molecule away from plastic”, that is so scientifically vague as to be a pretty meaningless statement. I put fertilizer with Phosporus to my lawn to make it grow better, but that is “one molecule away” from arsenic, a deadly poison. Heck, carbon dioxide is only one ATOM away from deadly carbon monoxide! Oooo scary. (It’s the dihydrogen monoxide that you REALLY have to watch out for.) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/22 "2005-04-19T22:42:49Z")
Margarine was also invented either some time in the1700s or 1800s (I forget exactly when, and I’m not digging through my books for a cite for this) in France becuase workers in the factories at the time couldn’t afford to buy butter for their bread, and thus didn’t have enough energy to be very productive on the job (tending to fall over and pass out a lot, it seems). So, one of the factory owners had a chemist figure out something that could be made cheaply to take the place of butter so that factory workers could put in a full 20 hour (or whatever it was they were working) day. Apparently, the thought that they could just pay their workers a few more francs never occured to them. ---
**Author:** ![Spezza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Spezza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spezza)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/23 "2005-04-19T22:46:40Z")
Its Quebec that still bans margarine from being dyed to simulate butter colour. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/24 "2005-04-19T22:55:12Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Margarine was also invented either some time in the1700s or 1800s (I forget exactly when, and I’m not digging through my books for a cite for this) in France becuase workers in the factories at the time couldn’t afford to buy butter for their bread, and thus didn’t have enough energy to be very productive on the job (tending to fall over and pass out a lot, it seems). So, one of the factory owners had a chemist figure out something that could be made cheaply to take the place of butter so that factory workers could put in a full 20 hour (or whatever it was they were working) day. Apparently, the thought that they could just pay their workers a few more francs never occured to them. I remember James Burke going on about that in an episode of _Connections_! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/25 "2005-04-19T22:58:52Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > I remember James Burke going on about that in an episode of _Connections_! 😃 Yup, and I’m too lazy to dig up my copy of the book to find the exact dates, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/26 "2005-04-19T23:30:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Is this law still in effect? Because there’s a brand of margarine called “I can’t believe it’s not butter”. I’m not 100% sure, but I think I remember reading that the manufacturers went to court to win the right to use the name. A bit of Googling brought up [this case (PDF file)](http://www.patent.gov.uk/tm/legal/decisions/2000/o40800.pdf), brought by the makers against another firm making a spread by the name of “You’d Butter Believe It” (groan), which says in passing: > [@](#): > > When the product [i.e. ICBINB] was launched the Independent Television Commission banned the associated television advertisements from being broadcast [because they] believed that they contravened an EC Directive which prohibited the use of dairy designations on non-dairy products I remember the newspaper adverts using this TV ban as publicity; they said something like “We’re only telling you what we’re not”. > [@](#): > > As to the benefits of margarine, I only know of three: It keeps longer, it’s cheaper, and the recipe can be varied for various reasons (it’s possible to make a low-fat margarine, but not a low-fat butter, for instance). Healthwise, there’s not much difference between them: They’re both pure lipid. Not true - there is a world of difference between saturates and unsaturates, and _cis_ and _trans_ fats. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/27 "2005-04-19T23:57:04Z")
From Visser again: > [@](#): > > The substance was invented on the Imperial Farm at Vincennes, outside Paris, in 1869. Europe had recently suffered a devastating cattle plague. Butter was difficult to get, and expensive. The French Emperor Napoleon III had offered a prize for the invention of something cheap to take the place of butter. Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés, a food chemist who had already earned two gold medals for making more bread with less flour, undertook his research with the personal support of the emperor and won the prize for his new spread. I won’t quote the original recipe and process; it’s stomach-churning and I mean that literally (i.e., it included sheep’s stomachs and cows’ udders). ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/28 "2005-04-20T00:09:21Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Margarine can be made from various vegetable oils. And so, the color will vary depending on the vegetable. Margarine made from corn is a bright yellow color, maybe even more so than butter. But I can’t think of any vegetables that are mainly black. Canola is black. Canola oil, however, is a light golden colour. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/29 "2005-04-20T01:05:06Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Margarine is really WHITE and then dyed yellow to look like butter. Isn’t butter naturally white, too? (Well, sort of an off-white “cream” color, anyway.) I remember in the Laura Ingalls Wilder series that when Ma made butter, she added a bit of carrot juice to make the butter a pretty yellow color. The organic butter that I buy has a lable on the back which says, “The color of our butter varies according to season because we do not add color.” This leads me to wonder what the cows are eating which causes the variation. I assume that it’s a preference of the American public that butter be yellow and cheese be orange, and so these colors are always added to the product because that’s what people expect. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/30 "2005-04-20T01:23:29Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > Isn’t butter naturally white, too? (Well, sort of an off-white “cream” color, anyway.) Butter is naturally off-white to a light yellow, depending on the time of the year the milk was taken and the cow’s diet. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/31 "2005-04-20T01:25:17Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > The organic butter that I buy has a lable on the back which says, “The color of our butter varies according to season because we do not add color.” This leads me to wonder what the cows are eating which causes the variation. You’re unlikely to find any added colors in any butter in the US, organic or otherwise (I won’t say “inorganic”). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/32 "2005-04-20T02:44:33Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Canola is black. Canola oil, however, is a light golden colour. Canola is a contrived name used to market [rapeseed oil](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed), which, due to an unfortunate moniker, would otherwise be difficult to sell. > [@](#): > > Canola is one of many selected cultivars of rapeseed bred to have a low erucic acid content. Canola was developed in Canada and its name is a contraction of “Canadian oil, low acid”. The name was also chosen partly for marketing reasons, so successfully that the name is sometimes mis-applied to other cultivars of rapeseed. But you are correct; rapeseed, from which canola oil is derived, is indeed black. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/33 "2005-04-20T03:24:39Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > Canola is a contrived name used to market [rapeseed oil](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapeseed), which, due to an unfortunate moniker, would otherwise be difficult to sell.But you are correct; rapeseed, from which canola oil is derived, is indeed black. I know very well what canola is, thank you very much. My uncle was one of the team of plant breeders that developed it. The naming of the crop was never solely because of the rather unfortunate name of rapeseed. Canola’s nutrional properties are substantially different from rapeseed, as the nature of the fats contained in the oil was heavily modified. My uncle always laughs when people talk about GM canola - “It’s all genetically modified,” he says. Though of course, they didn’t do any gene splicing during development the way that Monsanto did in creating the glyphosphate-resistant strain. Anyways. The point is, insisting on calling canola ‘rapeseed’ makes you no more correct than insisting on calling Royal Galas ‘apples’, and indeed, less so, since margarine made of non-canola rapeseed oil would be a horrible product for reasons besides just its name, whereas canola oil-based margarine is a fine product. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/34 "2005-04-20T03:30:28Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Margarine is really WHITE and then dyed yellow to look like butter. But butter IS white (or nearly so) in the US … ? At least all I’ve seen. The butter here is quite yellow, and there are no dyes listed on the pack. Always thought that odd. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/35 "2005-04-20T03:31:41Z")
[Here’s](http://www.old-time.com/commercials/delrich_margarine.html) a picture of one of those margarine products with the dye packs. \*\*Dr. Lao \*\* it appears that some butter does have added color. The [USDA](http://www.ams.usda.gov/standards/Butter.pdf) has a page that describes the assignment of grades to butter (PDF) which says, > [@](#): > > For the purpose of this subpart P “butter” means the food product usually known as > butter, and which is made exclusively from milk or cream, or both, with or without common salt, **and with or without additional coloring matter,** (bolding mine) [This site](http://www.butterisbest.com/book/index.html) says that adding color to butter is “optional”. Apparently, one of the most common colorings is [annatto.](http://www.cadenberge.de/trans-extraction/) ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/36 "2005-04-20T03:32:54Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > The point is, insisting on calling canola ‘rapeseed’ makes you no more correct than insisting on calling Royal Galas ‘apples’ “If you stew apples like cranberries, they taste more like prunes than rhubarb does.” _–Groucho Marx_ ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/37 "2005-04-20T03:48:57Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > “If you stew apples like cranberries, they taste more like prunes than rhubarb does.” _–Groucho Marx_ What, exactly, is your point? That I shouldn’t call canola ‘canola’, because you think I should use a less specific term that’s fallen into disuse? Here’s a hint: in my province this year, there are expected to be just shy of 6 million acres seeded to canola. There will be 0 acres seeded to non-canola rapeseed. Why should I should I take pains to explicate the nature of canola? Why is it a problem to use a crop’s variety name rather than its species name? Maybe we should be calling it _Brassica napus_ instead. Surely that’s more correct than either canola or rapeseed. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/38 "2005-04-20T06:28:43Z")
They’re both bad for you. Butter just tastes better, is all. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![max\_power](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/db5fbb/32.png) [@max\_power](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/max_power)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/39 "2005-04-20T08:56:50Z")
mmm butter… if only it would spread from the fridge. just to jump on the whole canola tangent… I live in ireland and i never knew what canola was… over here it’s rapeseed or oilseed rape. also butter here is quite yellow in colour. not sure why. don’t think that any colour is added. cattle here are fed almost exclusively on grass, maybe that has something to do with it. well i learned something new. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054/40 "2005-04-20T14:07:19Z")
> [@max power](#): > > also butter here is quite yellow in colour. not sure why. don’t think that any colour is added. cattle here are fed almost exclusively on grass, maybe that has something to do with it. It does. I grew up on a small mixed farm, and we milked 1-2 cows just for family consumption. Milk and products made from it were much yellower in the summertime when the cows’ diet was largely fresh grass than in winter when it was grains and hay. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/butter-vs-margarine-fact-list-true/300054.md?page=3)