Why Butter is Better for your Health than Margarine

The dangers of margarine & hydrogenated fats vs. the health benefits of butter.By Lady-in-the-Window

Everyone knows how delicious butter is. What tastes better than a nice plop pf butter on acrisp-skinned baked potato, or a thick smear of butter across a piece of pillow soft, warm bread? Butter gliding across an ear or corn, melted on top of a stack of pancakes, or hidden away inside a melt-in-your-mouth butter cookie. WOW. Is your mouth watering?I can remember twenty years ago when I ate fat free food only (totally stupid I knownow!). On the rare occasions I would go out to eat I would allow myself to spread some butter on the rolls. Nothing tastes so good! I would eat so much buttered bread that Icouldn’t finish my meal. I bet you have done this too. Ahhhh, the power of butter!Okay, so we all know that butter tastes great. Just ask renown cook Paula Deen, whoroutinely adds a stick of butter to most of her recipes. But, did you know that butter is the better choice (not just for taste) but for health as well? Humans have been eating healthful butter for thousands of years. People around the world have prized butter for it’s health benefits throughout history. Heart disease used to be very rare, back when we all ate butter as a regular part of our daily diet.I can see you recoil in horror and disbelief. How can it be? Isn’t butter a hotbed of saturated fat and artery clogging badness? Isn’t margarine better for you? Isn’t it lower insaturated fat and cholesterol?Despite all the “evidence” to the contrary, suggesting that margarine is better because itdoes not contain saturated fat and cholesterol. There are things far worse about margarine.Let’s take a look at margarine.

The mess that is margarine

Margarine became popular in the earlier part of the 1900’s, but didn’t overtake butter in popularity until the 1950’s or so. By 1960 heart disease became our number one killer.Coincidence? Margarine (other hydrogenated oils) is a main cause of heart andatherosclerosis, not butter, as the American Heart Association would have you believe.Because of the trans-fatty acids, margarine is correlated with more heart disease than anyother food- including butter.The trans-fatty acids in margarine (and vegetable shortenings like Crisco) increase LDLcholesterol (the bad one), and lower the healthier HLD cholesterol. This raises the risk of heart disease. What you have been told about margarine being better because butter hascholesterol is a big, fat, lie. I’ll explain more about that in the butter section of this article.Heart disease, diabetes, and other killer diseases are all running rampant and at an all timehigh, thanks largely to hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils that are used to

provide a long shelf life to commercially prepared baked goods, crackers, cookies, frozen prepared foods, etc.In order to make margarine the vegetable oils need to go through a process calledhydrogenation. Hydrogenation is the process of forcing hydrogen atoms into the holes of unsaturated fatty acids. This is done with hydrogen gas under pressure that is bubbledthrough the vegetable oil with the help of a metal catalyst, such as nickel, platinum or some other metal. When the hydrogen atoms combine with the carbon atoms, the oils becomes saturated or hardened.When this occurs, this new product ( margarine) no longer resembles the original oil. It isnow a dark and rancid mess. Nickel is a toxic heavy metal and some amount will alwaysremain in the margarine at it‘s completion. To make this unpalatable gloop appeal to themasses ( that would be you and me) deodorants and coloring agents are added to disguisethe rancid smell and to hide the disgusting grey color of the unappealing slop. Much like amagicians sleight of hand, this slick trickery of bleaching, filtering and deodorizing goes on behind the scenes, and we are none the wiser.What remains is a highly artificial fat that contains trans-fatty acids (Trans-fats. You’veheard of those, right? That’s the bad stuff.) and the same calorie count as butter. All theoriginal essential fatty acids are now gone, and any semblance to nutrition hasdisappeared. Welcome to margarine, a plastic fat.So how does use of margarine effect your health? Because the hydrogenated oils (and partially hydrogenated) in margarine are known to cause cancer, diabetes, heart disease,and much more. They block the bodies ability to absorb essential fatty acids, which arecritical for every bodily function. And, if all that weren’t enough, they make you gainweight like crazy. Still think margarine is the healthier choice?A great source of information on the dangers of these products can be found at Shirley’sWellness Café, a great natural health themed website that I find invaluable.Visit Shirley here:www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/oil.htm

The benefits of butter

You don’t need to be afraid of butter. In fact, you can freely embrace itscreamy, satisfying goodness.

Butter is best when raw and organic, of course, but that may not always be available. If itis, grab some. Butter has a lovely list of attributes that I bet you aren’t aware of. Did youknow that butter is a good source of vitamin A, and the other fat soluble vitamins as well?Butter is also rich in trace minerals, particularly selenium, which is an antioxidant. Iodinecan also be found in butter. Fatty acids are abundant in butter. Butter has a perfect blendof saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, which render it very stable in cooking. Evenat high temperatures it will not break down.

Butter has less cholesterol (11mg per teaspoon) than a cup of low fat milk (18 mg), lessthan 3 oz of light tuna in water(25 mg), or even 3 oz of beef, lamb, pork or chicken (71-79mg). Calves liver has 477mg of cholesterol per 3 oz serving, and an egg yolk 208 mg. I bet that butter looks pretty innocent now, huh?And something you may be shocked to hear, dietary intake of cholesterol has no impact onthe level of cholesterol in your blood. If you check out the link at the end of this article,you will finds lots factual information on cholesterol that you may not know.http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/07/21/statin-drugs-part-four.aspxDr. Mercola speaks on cholesterol"There's no connection whatsoever between cholesterol in food and cholesterol in blood.And we've known that all along. Cholesterol in the diet doesn't matter at all unless youhappen to be a chicken or a rabbit." Ancel Keys, Ph.D., professor emeritus at theUniversity of Minnesota 1997.Butter also contains short chain fatty acids that have immune stimulating and antimicrobial properties. In addition, butter also contains the correct balance of omega 3 and omega 6fatty acids. Fatty acid balance is critical to optimal health. If someone ever calls you afathead they are right! The human brain is more than 60% fat.Check out this helpful website than helps explain this better than I can:www.goodfats.pamrotella.com/There are just so many benefits to butter that I am going to refer you to a website thatclearly lists the top twenty benefits of butter.Benefits of Real Butter Top 20 List:www.bodyecology.com/07/07/05/benefits_of_real_butter.php

Hard Butter vs. Soft Spreadable Margarine

So now you know that butter is the better choice, right? Maybe you have the sameobjection as my mother does; that butter is hard to spread when you take it out of thefridge. Guess what? It is perfectly safe to leave butter out on the counter for hours or believe it or not, days. That is, in temperatures that are not in the high 80’s or 90’s, inwhich case you would have a puddle of butter, not exactly spreadable. So leave it out if you know you will be having that morning English muffin. That way you always havedelicious soft butter ready to use.Because of the high fat content, butter just does not spoil or go rancid very easily. Keep itcovered though. And if you are still worried, buy what is called a “butter bell”. Apparently