Rebecca MacFarlane
Do you remember the days when we used to love butter? Hot buttered toast. Butter melted into a creamy bowl of Jungle Oats on a cold morning. Lathered on a hot, juicy mealie straight out of the pot. A time when life was so much simpler. Then we were told butter is terribly bad for our health, and we were afraid, so we switched to margarine.
Now they are telling us margarine is actually the baddy to watch out for in terms of overall health.
So what should we believe? Is it butter or margarine for the win? The answer might not be so simple.
Butter is essentially a dairy product, made through a process of churning milk of a cow or goat. Margarine on the other hand is made from ultra-refined vegetable oils and water. It is essentially a vegetable alternative to butter, and has been widely believed to be a healthier option.
According to Harvard Health, a publication by Harvard Medical School, the real culprits in weight gain and heart disease are Trans fats and saturated fats.
Butter is high in saturated fats, while margarine is high in Trans fats. Both saturated and Trans fats have been linked to raise in bad cholesterol that contributes to a higher risk of heart disease. To complicate things even further, some margarines are higher in Trans fats, while others are lower.
So, which margarines are healthier? American Heart Association says to strictly avoid stick margarines, or what we would know as blocks of margarine commonly found on our supermarket shelves. The softer margarines that come in a tub are the healthier option. Harder margarine indicates higher levels of Trans fats, as Trans Fats are produced by hardening vegetable oils into a more solid fat. Rule of thumb: the harder the margarine, the more Trans fats it contains.Another argument against the margarine is healthier belief is that margarine is highly processed and contains synthetic chemicals, artificial colourants and preservatives that are detrimental to health, making butter the better option all along. That is more food for thought. No pun intended.
As far as butter goes, it really boils down to the same thing.
All in all, the general conclusion seems to suggest to pick your butters or margarines carefully. Thanks to the FDA, it is now a law that every product has to indicate the amounts of Trans and saturated fats contained within. These labels are your friend. Pay careful attention to them.
As well as checking your labels, also check your quantities. The American Heart Association allows for no more than 1 table spoon of these Trans and saturated fats per day. Be sure you aren’t ingesting more than this daily allowance.
I personally am a butter fan. If you are like me, you probably have been spending money purchasing expensive butter brands, expecting these to be of higher quality and therefore healthier. It may shock you then to learn that a lot of the most expensive brands, such as Kerry Gold Pure Irish butter, are in fact the least healthy and contain the highest levels of cholesterol raising saturated fats per individual serving.
Harvard Health admits that there is little evidence to suggest that margarine is better than butter in terms of your risk of heart disease, stating that the dangers of Trans fats contained in margarine were greatly overlooked when these studies were conducted. They go as far as to say that certain margarines sold most often in stores are actually 100 times worse for your health than butter. As mentioned above- the harder blocks are the culprits here.
Harvard Health concludes that the butter vs margarine debate is an overall unnecessary one and reiterates again that the real trick is in choosing a product that is lower in Trans or Saturated fats.
They recommends replacing butter and margarine with other alternatives, such as olive oil where appropriate, which contain much lower levels of saturated fats. A slice of bread dipped in olive oil can be as satisfying as a good butter.
Perhaps the Ancient Greeks had the right idea all along.
