Should I Choose Butter or Margarine?

I am often asked whether it is better to eat butter or margarine. Margarines and other spreads increasingly appeal to our desire for a healthy diet, often making impressive health claims. At a glance it appears that margarine aids weight-loss, reduces your risk of heart attack, provides useful vitamins and lowers your cholesterol. Seems like a healthy choice. But before you rush out to eat a spoon of this life-preserving food, have you noticed that even on the oldest and yellowiest margarine at the back of the fridge, the mould only grows on the crumbs of food which have fallen in. Everything else is in advanced state of decay, but the margarine sits blandly and smoothly in its tub- untouched. Nothing has grown on it because there is nothing for the mould to eat. Margarine is a highly processed food , and to me it illustrates the problem of modern food marketing; promoted as improving health it is actually highly processed, and lacking any living nutrition. Margarine was developed over a hundred years ago as a butter substitute for the Army and the lower classes ; to be cheap and last for a long time.

A tub of a popular sunflower margarine which claims to help keep your heart healthy contains; Vegetable oils, (including sunflower oil 36%) water, buttermilk (5%), salt (1.5%), Emulsifier: mono- and di-glycerides of fatty acids, preservative: potassium sorbate, citric acid, vitamin E, flavouring, vitamin B6, colour: beta-carotine, folic acid, vitamins A, D and B12. This margarine contains amongst other things flavouring (an unknown chemical), and unrecorded vegetable oil (only 36% of the oil is from sunflowers) and there is a good chance that it is extremely cheap and possibly Genetically Modified (we will save that debate for another day). In contrast my packet of organic butter contains only two ingredients; organic cream and salt. Being organic, I also know that it should be free of hormone and pesticide residues (linked to cancers, infertility and neurological disorders).

Butter is a natural pure product. It does not last as long and yes it is high in saturated fat. These should never be eaten in excess, but can be part of a healthy diet if used in sensible amounts; after all they are pure ingredients which have been part of our diet for thousands of years. Traditionally people would have eaten dairy, meat and eggs in small quantities due to the expense of their production; there was no cheap mass-produced food. Importantly, people would have been active all day long, often involved in the physically demanding tasks of agricultural and food production. Our bodies have not changed although our lifestyle has changed almost beyond recognition, but if we eat a balanced diet of whole, unprocessed foods, and stay active, we should live long and healthy lives. In fact the rise of obesity, heart disease and cancer, which had been popularly linked to a diet high in animal fats, is largely influenced by a rise in the widespread use of cheap, long-lasting hydrogenated fats.

Margarine is usually made from vegetable oils which are runny, and to make it spread-able they must be hardened. Sometimes processing results in the production of hydrogenated (trans) fats which are known to be extremely damaging to the heart and circulation. Now that people are more aware about this danger it is possible to buy margarine which does not contain them. Choose margarines which are labelled as free from hydrogenated or trans-fats. By law they need not be labelled, and so you may not know that they are in margarine or another product. Similarly, snacks like biscuits and cakes may list margarine as an ingredient, and this margarine is likely to contain unlabelled trans-fats. If you use margarine for cooking or frying, this changes the nature of the fat, and heating may produce trans-fats and other toxic compounds. It is healthier to fry and cook with olive oil or butter to avoid this problem, as they remain stable at high temperatures.

So, butter or margarine? I will choose butter every time. It concerns me that some people may believe that by switching to a heart-friendly, cholesterol-lowering spread, they may be excused the hassle of exercising and giving up other unhealthy food choices. Despite what the food industry is telling us, you cannot buy a short-cut to health. Living a healthy, long and disease-free life means eating natural, unprocessed foods and staying active every day; you just can t buy that in a tub.