I Cant Believe Its Not Better

I went food shopping on black Friday and what a pleasure. I mean really no lines at the supermarket, because everyone was either stuck on the highway on raiding the mall. While walking through the supermarket looking at some of the different products I went to get some butter to make some toast or grilled cheese with. I looked at the selection I was puzzled I wasn’t sure whether to choose butter or margarine. A flurry of thoughts ran through my mind calories, fat , and a family history of heart disease. So I decided to research it this is what I found. The making of margarine is a multi-step process. Margarine is man made by using different kinds of oil such as cotton seed, corn oil, coconut oil, soybeans or other vegetable sources. The oil is extracted from the seed by a machine that presses the oil out of it. To get more oil from the seed sometime it is heated to 350 degrees and even some processes use a solvent. The mixture is then heated again to get rid of the solvent. To make it more appealing in color it requires a further chemical process. In order to make the oil solid it takes a process called hydrogenation. This is where Hydrogen is pumped into the oil which changes its molecules to make it solid. The more they hydrogenate it the more solid it becomes. (Not a very appetizing process in my opinion). Butter is a natural substance made from cream. First the cream is aged in a cool temperature to be sure that the fat has a crystal type structure. This takes 12-15 hours. It is then placed into a churn, which mixes the cream until butter granules form. Here you end up with butter fat and butter cream. The butter cream is poured off and you are left with butter. Then the butter is salted (for taste and to keep it fresh) and then packaged. (A much more natural process in my opinion). The calorie content is quite different while margarine can range anywhere from 0-50 calories per pack, butter can be 100- 250 calories per pack.

Personal Opinion (butter is better)

• Butter although high in fat does not contain the chemicals in margarine


• Butter has stood the test of time.


• The body sees margarine as a foreign non-edible substance.


• People don’t like chemicals in their food and are confused about margarine.


• As people learn more about the potential for cancer causing materials in margarine sales will probably decline further.


• Locally most people prefer the timeless taste of butter over the synthetic taste of margarine.