Hands down butter is better than margarine. Prior to moving we used to have a share in a cow which gave us pure, raw, unpasteurised and unhomogenised cream from which we would make nutritious and delicious butter! Butter with salt and dulse flakes, basil and garlic and many other combinations. But what have people been fed via education, TV, newspapers and radio for so many decades that would have them shun butter and chose margarine? Well one thing is for sure we know the marketing messages from unchallenged industries carries massive weight in showing people what decisions to make be that in finances, health and even education.
Why is it that so many people swapped from butter to margarine all those decades ago?
Heart disease was rare when the world progressed into the 1900’s. But if we go back to the early 1900’s there was a company called Procter and Gamble (P&G) who thought cottonseed, a toxic waste product, could be turned into a cooking oil.
What? I know… wait for it…
P&G were already using cottonseed oil to make candles and soap, that should ring alarm bells, when they discovered they could hydrogenate the cottonseed oil into a solid that resembled animal fats.
Yikes!
And in 1911 a product called ‘Crisco’ entered the market.
Crisco was marketed as ‘better than butter’ a more versatile form of ‘butter’ for frying, baking and cooking. It could be stored at room temperature and P&G claimed it’s easier to digest and healthier too. Oh my gosh the lies! The hydrogenation process creates ‘trans-fats’ which increase a person’s heart risk and people around the world went nuts for it. They began to consume up to 10kg per day! All whilst the paid off heart associations were giving it their tick of approval. Shock horror! And so over the 100 years butter use plummeted and heart disease increased.
The aim of P&G was simple – get everyone to eat vegetable oils e.g. Crisco and Margarine, watch for the massive heart disease increase, place the blame on natural fats, create a drug to help with heart disease with the end result being people lose and pHARMa profits. It wasn’t long before heart disease became the number one killer of people, Cholesterol became the bad guy and Statin drugs were rolling out of the pHARMacy like lollies.
Margarine back then had tight laws in some states in the USA.
Some states said it had to be sold as it was in the whitish-grey uncoloured state, some allowed for the yellow dye to be added so it could be sold as you see it today resembling the colour of butter but acting nothing like butter in your body while other states said it had to be dyed pink to make it clear to people that it wasn’t to be confused with butter! Some areas of the USA were doing whatever they could to make sure butter was staying on the table.
But P&G needed research to market margarine as the next best thing to butter.
Cut to 1952 and a man by the name of Ancel Keys created the diet-heart hypothesis that linked heart disease to fat intake. He clearly did a good job because not only did he make it to the front page of Time magazine but people today still fear eating fats, where eating little to no fat resembles a healthy diet. And, unfortunately, people have followed his advice at their own peril and routinely shop for Olivani, Meadow Lea, Star, Becel, Flora, Olive Grove etc to name a few.
When you dig a little deeper, you’ll find research that disproves Ancel’s hypothesis but sadly countries around the world have done very little to lift the ‘fats bad’ narrative and promote foods contrary to Ancel’s ‘discovery.’ One of the biggest health crisis for the last 60+ years has been the food pyramid which espouses the standard (SAD) diet. Unfortunately, the idea that saturated fat is unhealthy is still front and centre of everybody’s focus.
Butter is better!
In its raw form it contains many properties that protect you like:
- Vitamin A: which aids in health of thyroid and adrenal glands which both play a role in maintaining proper function of the heart and cardiovascular system. It also plays a strong anti-oxidant role and is vital to a healthy immune system.
- Lecithin: which helps with the proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol and other fat constituents.
- Anti-oxidants: like Vitamin E and Selenium.
- Cholesterol: a powerful anti-oxidant which floods into the blood stream when you take in too many harmful free-radicals via margarine or other highly processed vegetable oils1 found in things like chips and crackers. Cholesterol also promotes health of the intestinal wall and protects against cancer of the colon.2
- The Wulzen factor: or ‘anti-stiffness’ factor. Wulzen, a Dutch researcher found that butter protects against degenerative arthritis as well as hardening of the arteries, cataracts and calcification of the pineal gland.3
- Vitamins D (and A): are essential for proper absorption of calcium for strong bones and teeth and also has anti-cariogenic effects which means it protects against tooth decay.4
All of the above and many other benefits of butter all contribute to the optimal growth of a child. The chief one being Cholesterol which plays an important role in the development of the brain and nerve system5.
Children and adults alike need the many factors in butter and animal fats for optimal development.
Now you know the propaganda behind margarine and how it came to be and more importantly how it is made I’m sure you’re going to high tail it back to butter because… it’s just better for you!
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GOOD TO SHARE: Since 1990 Drs Randall & Sarah Farrant have been global mentors to thousands of individuals, families, health professionals, celebrities and sporting personalities. They have facilitated and inspired people to live an alternate and vitalistic life
References:
- Cranton, EM, MD and JP Frackelton, MD, Journal of Holistic Medicine, Spring/Summer 1984
- Addis, Paul, Food and Nutrition News, March/April 1990 62:2:7-10
- American Journal of Physical Medicine, 1941, 133; Physiological Zoology, 1935 8:457
- Kabara, J J, The Pharmacological Effects of Lipids, J J Kabara, ed, The American Oil Chemists Society, Champaign, IL 1978 pp 1-14
- Alfin-Slater, R B and L Aftergood, “Lipids”, Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, Chapter 5, 6th ed, R S Goodhart and M E Shils, eds, Lea and Febiger, Philadelphia 1980, p 131
