I have a question which I hope has a factual answer.
Which is healthier, butter or margarine?
I was always under the impression that margarine was healthier, but my wife has told me that t he only real difference is that margarine uses vegetable oils and fats whereas butter uses animal oils and fats. If there really is not much difference, does it matter which I eat if I am trying to lose weight.
Rick
according to this margarine is the way to go.
If you are trying to lose weight then it’s calories that count so just read the calorie count on the label. But you used the word “healthy” and there’s much more to it than just calories. You want lower count in saturated fat there.
Well, nearly all margarine contains hydrogenated vegetable oils, which means they have been partly saturated to make them solid. Moreover, this results in “trans” fatty acids (I am not sure what that means exactly, but I do know that that if you substitute two groups for H atoms in benzene, trans means they are two that are opposite each other), which are now thought to be worse for you than ordinary saturated fats. On the other hand, there are now at least some margarines on the market (IIRC, something called BECEL is one) that claim to have no trans fatty acids or maybe are not hydrogenated at all. As for calories, I believe that margarine and butter are identical, being something like 80% pure fat. On the basis of taste, neither my wife nor I will allow margarine in the house. On the other hand, we use so little butter that we sometimes have to scrape the outside which has discolored. But if I’m going to get all those calories, at least I will enjoy it thoroughly. Sweet butter, by the way. It is usually fresher than salt butter since there is no salt to cover up any off-flavors. You can always add salt.
So, can I interpret the above to conclude that there’s no real reason to use margarine at all? (Unless you’re looking for something to spread on your toast)
The healthiest approach seems to be to use primarily olive oil or light vegetable oils (like canola) for cooking, and “unhealthy” fats like butter, lard, schmaltz, bacon fat, etc., in moderation.
Well, margarine is a lot cheaper.
I never really craved butter on my toast but if I had to have some fat on it, I love some bread or toast with a bit of olive oil. Add garlic and a bit of salt and the result is way above butter.
Margarine is much cheaper and most resterants will use it as a default if not exclusivley.
In a related thread I was talking about the Atkins diet/lifestile. It boils down to natural fats are not only not unhealthy but nessesary to good health (but obviously not good spelling). This goes for saturated and unsaturated fats and he sites studies (not his own). Hydrogenated/Trans-fats (which are unnatural forms of fats caused by certain groups of I think O-H being attached to the other side of the carbon chain) are the ones to stay away from.
Unfortunatly McD’s moved from natural beef tallow to partially Hydro/ transfat 
.
I am sure you can find studies both ways, but this article:
http://www.ralphmoss.com/html/olive.shtml
is one linking margarine to cancer.
And this from the Ten Myths of Vegetarianism:
http://www.mercola.com/2000/apr/2/vegetarian_myths.htm
I rarely use either. For cooking, olive and/or canola oil. For flavor, olive oil and herbs. On my toast, jelly. I only use butter when a recipe calls for it as an ingredient (not just a pan lubricant) and olive oil would taste bad.
Margarine is healthier than butter - if you’re buying the right kind:
See the table
for fat measurements.
Myself, I had a grandmother who lived to 112 eating bacon and eggs every morning cooked in lard. I’m just not going to sweat it!
and
parellels the studies that Atkins sites and puts into question if saturated fats are unhealthy at all.
There is also a vegan butter substitute called Earth Balance which doesn’t have those trans-fat whatchamajigs. I’m not vegan or anything, but I like the taste of it so I use it instead of butter.
G’day
Back in the '70s there was a study that found that people who eat olive oil in quantity (such as the populations of southern Italy and southern France) suffer markedly less hardening of the arteries than people who eat similar diets with butter in place of the olive oil (such as the populations of northern Italy and northern France). Butter contains only saturated fats, and olive oil contains mono-unsaturated fats. People guessed that this was the reason, and further leaped to the conclusion that if mono-unsaturated fat is good, polyunsaturated must be better. That is the extent of the evidence that margarine is healthy.
It has since turned out tha the real reason that olive oil suppresses arterial disease is that it contains the essential fatty acid lineoleic acid (7%). Most dieticians have paid no attention. Some other vegetable oils contain even higher proportions (safflower oil 79%, sunflower oil 69%, sesame 41%, peanut 29%). But others contain alpha-linoleic acid, which promotes arterial disease, hypertension, and type II diabetes. These include flaxseed (57% alpha-LA), canola (10%), walnut (7%), and corn oil (2%). On this basis, it would seem that margarines made out of some oils might be good for your arteries, and margarines made out of others (eg. flaxseed oil, canola oil) might be very bad for them.
Now, margarine is generally made out of plant oils by a chemical reaction that transforms their fatty acids from cis- configurations that are liquid at room temperature to isomers with a trans- configuration that are solid at room temperatures. No natural food contains trans- fatty acids, and we are not adapted by evolution, nor intended by God, to eat them. Recent studies show that trans- fatty acids in the diet cause a significantly elevated rate of several cancers. On these grounds you ought to avoid margarine like poison.
As for butter, it turns out that the elevated rates of heart disease in the French and Italians with the butter diets are caused not by anything in the butter, but by its comparative lack of linoleic acid. If you eat plenty of olive oil on your salad, there is nothing wrong with putting butter on your bread. Moreover, butter consists of saturated fats that cannot undergo any cis- to trans- transformations when heated. So if you are frying or sauteeing, it is safest to use either a vegetable oil with a very high smoke point (eg. olive oil) or a saturated fat such as butter, lard, or dripping.
Now, the process of arteriosclerosis involves cholesterol being laid down in the arteries, and one of the first statistical correlations noted was with high levels of cholesterol in the blood. It seemed, therefore, sensible to reduce cholesterol in the diet. And butter contains cholesterol. This has for twenty years been the chief argument that makes out butter to be unhealthy.
Fortunately, this argument is biochemical nonsense. 80% or more of the cholesterol in human blood is made in the liver, not absorbed from food. If you cut down on cholesterol in your diet, and unless you starve yourself, your liver will simply restore the original level by making more. Moreover, it turns out that cholesterol levels are only a poor indicator of risk for heart disease. Specialist ignore them, and concentrate on the ratio of low-density to high-density lipoproteins.
On balance, there is no reason to believe that butter is unhealthy, unless it is consumed to the exclusion of oils containing linoleic acid. And margarine is at least somewhat carcinogenic (as is the solidified vegetable fat used in frying most fast food).
Regards,
Agback
Sorry to hijack, but after reading through 1/3 of the “Ten Myths of Vegetarianism”, I have to say that although some of his claims might be true, the site seems hysteric and unreliable, and I would hesitate before using it as a source. (http://www.mercola.com/2000/apr/2/vegetarian_myths.htm)
From that page: “Bill and Tanya sat before me in my office in a sombre mood: they had just lost their first baby in the second month of pregnancy. Tanya was particularly upset: “Why did this happen to me? Why did I miscarry my baby?” … Upon questioning Tanya about her diet, I quickly saw the cause of her infections, as well as her miscarriage: she … was also mostly a vegetarian.”
“In my own practice, I recently saved two vegans from death from anaemia by convincing them to eat generous amounts of dairy products.” [sup]Instead of recommending that they take appropriate supplements that would fit their lifestyle.[/sup]
As for me, I also use olive oil. Yum!
butter also contains amounts of CLAs (conjugated linoleinic acids) which are believed to be anticancer and help with weight loss.
As the OP is (significantly) answered, can I ask a following related question:
Is there any reason to pay lots more cash to have a pro-active marg (like Flora) which claims it can actually reduce cholesterol levels? Can eating certain types of fat reduce your cholesterol?
Thanks.
IF certain foods can raise chol. then it makes sense that avoiding those foods (selecting other foods) should be able to lower it. The trick is finding out which foods do what.
I think when you hear such claims they are really playing with words (butter is suppose to raise your chol. ours is not suppose to so lets say it lowers it). Also remember that there are 2 types of chol. HDL and LDL commonly know as good and bad. Atkins has pointed out that a lot of the manufactured products like Flora (I don’t know if he actually points this one out, just marg. products) if they lower your chol at all will almost always lower your good chol and pretty much leave your bad chol. alone leaving you with a worse ration then you started.
Just something to think about when you hear such claims.
i’ve heard margarine contains quite a number of chemicals, butter is more natural so from that point of view i think butter would be better…i certainly like the taste better!
It’s become fashionable to use olive oil intead of butter these days, some also spread a thin layer of avacado on their bread istnead…personally i’ve considered using low fat ricotta cheese… but i don’t eat bread that often so have never tried it as a substitute.
only reason i’d consider marg. would be if my doc put me on a cholesterol lowering diet, there are specific margarines that acutally help to lower your cholesterol - apparently
Not to any great extent. And if it could, would that be advisable?
Be aware that the specialists who treat arterial disease no longer consider total cholesterol levels to be a particularly good indicator of risk. Instead, they look at the ratio of various different components of total cholesterol to one another. If your ratio of LDL:HDL is 4.0 or less then your total cholesterol doesn’t seem to matter.
The next question to ask is whether there is a better way. And if you consider the secondary effects of the hormones insulin and glucagon it becomes apparent that there might be. Eat less carbohydrate and more protein, for example. This will lower insulin levels and raise glucagon levels, thus reducing LDLs, raising HDLs, lowering blood pressure, and inhibiting the excessive formation of smooth muscle tissue in the walls of blood vessels. It should also reduce appetite, which ought to result in weight loss.
Whether this works in practice as well as it does in theory has not been adequately tested, at least in peer-reviewed literature. Therapists who use this approach to treating obesity and other risk factors for heart disease claim fantastic results. And I will tell you that it seems to be working astonishingly well for me. But controlled studies are lacking.
If I had a few more millions I would invest one or two in a twelve-month randomised outcome study (N = 300) comparing the Atkins diet, a moderate-protein moderately-low-carbonhydrate diet with adequate vitaminaceous foods and fibre, a control group, a sensible high-complex-carbohydrate diet, and one of the extreme low-fat diets recommended to reduce cholesterol.
My guess is that both the extreme diets would have very poor compliance. 90-95% of the intake would be off their diets and fatter than ever after 12 months. The moderate low-fat diet would have moderate weight loss compared to the control, but no improvement in triglycerides or blood pressure. The moderate low-carb diet would, I suspect, show the best compliance, greatest average weight loss, and the only averge improvement in risk factors for arterial disease. But that is only a guess. Somebody ought to do the experiment.
Regards,
Agback