Let’s start off by comparing ingredients in Margarine and Butter.
Margarine:
Vegetable oil blend (partially hydrogenated soybean oil), water, salt, whey (from milk), soy lecithin, vegetable mono and diglycerides, potassium sorbate (used to protect quality), citric acid, artificial flavors, vitamin a palmitate, beta carotene (for color). Contains: milk, soy. In the processing method, margarine is typically mixed with metal catalysts are used such as palladium or nickel.
Butter:cream
With this in mind, does anyone (but margarine manufacturers of course) think that Margarine is a “healthy” substitute for butter? Between 1920 and 1960, the percentage of heart disease rose dramatically to become a huge health concern. During these 40 years or so, the amount of butter consumed per person went from 18 to 4 pounds per year. As such, it is easy to see that OTHER FACTORS were the issue involving heart disease, not butter. DID YOU KNOW that butter contains many substances that actually protect us from heart disease?! At the top of the list is Vitamin A, which directly and indirectly contributes to the health of the heart and cardiovascular system in general. For pregnant women, Vitamin A is essential for the proper growth and development of the baby’s heart. Butter contains also contains a substance called lecithin which assists in the processing and metabolism of cholesterol and other fats. Butter also contains a number of healthy anti oxidants that protect against the kind of free radical which damages arteries. Vitamin A and vitamin E found in butter both play a strong anti-oxidant role. Butter is a very rich source of selenium, a vital anti-oxidantButter is also a good dietary source of good cholesterol, a strong anti oxidant that counters the harmful free-radicals-usually from
damaged and rancid fats in margarine and highly processed vegetable oils.
A Medical Research Council survey showed that men eating butter ran half the risk of developing heart disease as those using margarine.
Butter also has other dramatically impactful health improving qualities. Margarine has virtually none. Doc’s Prescription: Pass on the margarine and add some butter to the mix.