Butter -vs- hydrogenated hormone filled oils, erm, margarine
Fabulous article on butter -vs- margarine here.
I love the opening lines: "Why anyone would still willingly eat margarine is beyond me. Seriously."
Indeed. Margarine is like coagulated death. Not only is it loaded with hydrogenated oils, it's often soybean oil (and you can keep your female hormones to yourself, thanks, and my kids won't be getting any either.)
If you can get past the wincingly awful grammar gaffe* (twice!) of using "comprised of", the rest of the post if fab.
The author carefully details what's horrible about margarine: chemical solvents used to produce those trans-fatty acids, for example, and what's wonderful about butter:
"... short-chain and medium-chain fatty acids that come from butter offer antimicrobial and immune-enhancing benefits to the eater. [snip]
Butter is rich in vitamins and minerals that are not present in margarine. For example, butter is rich in real Vitamin A – a vitamin that is critical to reproductive health and vitally important to both babies still developing in their mothers’ wombs as well as young children. Butter is rich in Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Vitamin D and the mineral selenium..."
I personally switched my entire family over to real butter at the end of last year - a hard row to hoe for a person as frugal as I am - and buy it in restaurant sized bulk packages. I am convinced, however, that it's best for my family, and by golly, our food tastes better! I substitute olive oil in cooking and use butter mainly as a spread/garnish. I have also noticed that we use MUCH less butter on food than we did margarine. Quality over quantity!
Do you still use margarine? Why? And if you've switched, what are you doing to offset the increased cost of using real butter?
*Grammar rant: "Comprised of" is a big grammar FAIL. You mean "composed of". Comprised means "to include" or "to be made up of", thus a library is not comprised of books, rather books comprise a library.
3 Comments:
or "an organization comprising several subcommities." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/comprise
Grammar fails get me too. Yes we are staunch butter advocates, and use it in everything. I have several recipes for coconut flour pancakes, almond meal muffins/banana bread, and etc that call for butter by the stick. Those recipes usually only feed 2-4 people.
I work with the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers so I’m well informed on this subject. Have you looked at a margarine label lately? Soft and liquid margarines now show “0 grams trans fat on their label, and trans fat levels of stick margarines have been greatly reduced. Margarine manufacturers continue to be the leaders in the food industry in removing trans fats from products, and they continue to innovate the market by adding healthy, functional ingredients such as omega fatty acids, and fat-soluble vitamins, like Vitamins D and E to products.
The margarine industry has made such an impact in providing healthy product that in 2005, when the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the MyPyramid food guidance system was issued, liquid oils, and soft, trans fat-free margarine spreads were classified by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report as helping to meet the essential fatty acids and Vitamin E needs of consumers.
To learn more about the benefits of margarine products, check out these links: http://www.margarine.org, http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/transfat.html#choice1 and http://margarine.org/pdf/inthenews_092906-nytimes.pdf
I admit I have a bad weakness for margarine. I grew up on it and really hate the taste of butter. :(
I've tried to switch, but I always end up going back to it. However, I hardly ever use as much as recipes call for, and sometimes I use half butter half margarine when I just want the flavor to be margarine (i.e the rare box of mac and crack you'd probably kill me for). For the most part, I substitute a good portion with olive oil, and BF may have me somewhat halfway liking this spreadable butter with canola oil that will probably kill me just as fast as the nucoa will. LOL
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