Facts About Butter

From my MIL sent to me.

Pass the butter ~ ~ ~ ~ This is interesting.

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback
so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings.

DO YOU KNOW...the difference between margarine and butter?

Read on to the end...gets very interesting!

Both have the same amount of calories.

Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods..

Butter
has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few only because they are added!

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And now, for Margarine..

Very high in trans fatty acids.

Triple risk of coronary heart disease.

Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five fold.

Lowers quality of breast milk.

Decreases immune response.

Decreases insulin response.


And here's the most disturbing fact.... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC..

This
fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

You can try this yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)

* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value; nothing will grow on it Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

Share This With Your Friends.....(If you want
to "butter them up")!

Don

Many margarines contain no trans fats. The one that I purchase has none, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. Most cardiologists will advise against using butter,mine did after the first heart operation. After the second operation for coronary bypasses,I switched to margarine. I have been healthy for many years and walk three miles every day. I average about a thousand miles per year. These medical studies may be biased either way. It depends upon who is funding them. Most studies that report bad things about margerine are funded by the dairy industry. They lobbied successfully for many years to have margarine sold white so it would look like lard. If you want to reduce your risk of coronary problems,don't use butter. There is no cholesterol in margarine.

Oh, no! My quality of breast milk will decrease?

I thought margarine was due to WWII and rationing, but that shows how much I know. Come to find out margarine has been around a long time. Maybe with rationing, margarine gained acceptance (at least when I was growing up I preferred it to butter since that is what was always on the table, butter was an expensive treat according to my parents). My parents said it used to come with the food coloring in a little pack that you had to mix in (this was during the war years) if you wanted to make it look yellow. How about them apples?

We have switched to spreadable butter (with some kind of oil for the spreadability?) recently based on all the hysteria and (thanks to a lesser extent) Dr. Oz. We have been using stick butter for years for baking and cooking. I'm just waiting to break out in health anyday now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine
http://www.americainwwii.com/stories/victorysspread.htm
http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/butter.asp

Table salt is one molecule different from hydrochloric acid. I'll put NaCl on my fries, but you won't catch HCl near me without gloves & a lab coat on. Water (H2O) is one molecule away from being peroxide (H2O2), too.... Isn't going to keep me from putting either one on a fresh cut.

Please trust the chemist in me when I tell you this - Margarine & Plastic are VERY different. Not only are they different in their Hydrogens, Carbons, and Oxygens, they're also different in how those little atoms are connected to each other. Whether margarine is nutritionally useful or not is a whole different discussion. I very frustrated when I see "one thing is one molecule from something else, therefore it must be bad for you."

EDIT TO add:
Not everything listed there was even true.
http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/butter.asp

This message was edited Feb 28, 2007 12:48 PM

Angel
Bravo!! very good comment. I have also had it up to here with the one molecule argument.Geez,enough is enough!

Isn't water one atom away from hydrogen peroxide?

Remember a cow is only one chromosome away from being human. No wonder my in laws all look alike! LOL.
Might also explain their table manners.

Don

This message was edited Feb 28, 2007 2:41 PM

The best thing is use NEITHER butter or margarine, and use light olive oil instead.

Olive oil for cooking yes, but it's to sticky for my taste on baked tatters.

Don

Look in your dairy case. Fleishmann makes a butter substitute made from olive oil. It is very good.

Look in your dairy case. Fleishmann makes a butter substitute made from olive oil. It is very good.

P. S. Colorless marjarine became popular during WWII when butter was hard to get. My job as a child was to add the yellow coloring.

Beth
You have made another good comment. I only use margarine for toast and a couple of other uses but olive oil for everything else. I purchase olive oil in three liter jugs at Sam's.
Snipe
I am an animal! I may be missing one molecule! Some of my friends think so.

Hmmm...all very interesting. I appreciate your experience in the chem field Angelsong and your research!

However when I read the first post boy did I get scared, shouldn't have been, I nixed margarine from my diet about a year ago because of all the news stories, docs on TV (must be paid by the dairy industry...I'm sure they do get involved) well I've just never seen a case for eating margarine instead of butter.

One must consider the more modern food developments carefully given that we are one of the fattest nations in the world now. All this processing is just to scary.

All the "studies" are paid for by somebody.. And for every controversial study available, there's usually one that says the opposite. It's just what happens when science gets clouded by politics. Some folks want us all to be terrified of processed TV-dinners, ready-to-eat meals, and margarine, while others tell us it's okay to eat that stuff, we will be well-preserved & live forever.

I eat whatever I can easily get to on any particular day. I'm not obese, at all. I'm actually right at a good weight. Be any smaller on the scales & my ribs would stick out. I exercise frequently, and maintain a pretty busy lifestyle on my own. Some days, I can cook a "healthy meal" like pan grilled pork chops with a baked potato & frozen vegetables. Other days, I grab a Hot Pocket, nuke it, and go on my way.

Yes, I meant 'one atom' - Must be my similarities to a cow that caused that small mental-lapse. My sincerest apologies for my errors...

I don't think it's the processing that makes us fat - it's sitting on our duffers, driving everywhere (including dropping kids off at the bus stop), watching TV (with snacks), staying indoors if it is too hot or too cold, having food and drink in the refrigerator and cupboards, and oversized portions at most diners that makes us fat. I've seen fat farmers that grow and raise most of their food (how's that possible?).

Ready-made (24 hour available) food and modern conveniences (lifestyle) are major contributors to the obese problem.

We grew up walking to the bus stop, riding bicycles and playing sports/games outdoors because it was too hot indoors, a soft drink was a treat after a home cooked dinner (if there was any in the house), and eating out was a rare event. Now kids watch TV and play video games, go to fast food restaurants where everything is supersized, and coke machines are in the schools.

I live in America's Dairyland so I know the difference, in fact a county next to ours has more cows than people in it. I do like to use butter for cooking for taste, but will use margarine for sandwiches etc. You know that stuff is bad if it melts instead of spoiling when left out ;)

Hi
HDL is the bad cholesterol and LDL is the good cholesterol :]

Actually it is the other way (HDL good, LDL bad).

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=180

http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/adolescent/clht.html

http://www.medicinenet.com/cholesterol/page4.htm

sorry you are right. my bad;[

Someone said olive oil makes sticky baked potatoes. Not the way I do them. Slice raw potatoes into thick "steak fries" and toss in olive oil with a pinch of ground black pepper or dried herbs, lay them flat on a non-stick baking sheet and bake until they start to brown. Take them out of the oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then put them back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes. Result: puffy, crisp, baked potatoes.

I use olive oil almost exclusively for cooking. However, when I use butter I choose a good quality UNSALTED butter, and use as little as possible. We all eat too much salt, eh?

Well, my HDL went up another notch tonight. For supper I fried sweetpotatoe patties, talapia and squash in butter. It was soooo good. You've got to die of something sometime so might as well enjoy getting there. Also had wild rice cooked in chicken broth. It was good too. Then had bread pudding for dessert. LIZ

hehe, amen to that LIZ!

I certainly didn't mean that over processing was the sole cause of obesity. Sorry.

Just goes to show you that you can skew the "facts" almost any way w/a little double talk. We eat salted butter, fry in peanut oil (never deep fry) and rarely use olive oil because of the taste which we don't care for. Both DDH and I are at or under our ideal weight but our kids - especially our girls - are obese simply because of the WAY they eat and not really what they eat except they eat A LOT. We are all going to die of something as said above and as long as you don't try to hurry the process why completely deny yourself? I eat some take out but DDH would rather have a decent home cooked meal I cook for him. My take out is usually fried chicken - no FFs - and biscuits ("cause I can't make decent ones except or the tube kind). We enjoy all kinds of foods and choose to eat out at a decent restaurant a least once a week if not more but usually things that I don't care to learn to make, are too much trouble to make, etc.

Ann

Food should be one of the simple pleasures in life. Why starve yourself to gain a little extra time on earth(that is a maybe, a big maybe)? After watching those people on one of those hour format TV programs who were on a restricted caloric diet (a sweet potato wedge is all they had for supper for example) to theoretically stretch their lives to 150 (based on lab mice) was ridiculous. They looked anemic and the man looked like he couldn't beat his way out of a wet paper bag. Balance and moderation is a good goal to shoot for.

I would rather die from a heart attack from eating poorly than suffer from cancer and be miserable for years. I work for a chemical company - I'm going to get cancer. The question isn't when, it's how badly... So I'd rather take the risk of butter & greasy french fries than suffer on tofu & spinach.

You know this butter thing is turning into a slippery subject. Little did I know.

Don

Snipe,

LOL LOL

Judy

I always think it's funny when people say they will eat what they want because we are all going to die anyways. It's not a matter of I will die...for me it's a matter of how I'll be living for me...as long as I'm here I want to be feeling good. I know I'll die. But I hope to be healthy long into my elderly years...especially so I can enjoy digging in the garden!

I'd like to eat healthier than I do. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I DO try. But anyway, my daughter, a doctor, won't touch margerine and neither will I. We all make our own choices. Some good ones, some bad ones, in most cases.

I know that's right.

For me, I need to lower my salt intake. Ate my first baked potato ever with NO SALT. Big accomplishment here! Still getting salt in all the prepared foods/snacks but trying not to add more to my plate at the table. Someone told me you aren't supposed to have more than a teaspoon all day??? And since I wasn't thinking of how much was in every product a teaspoon at the table didn't sound to bad! LOL! Still working on it....

Tir_Na_Nog, good for you! You will soon re-train your taste buds, and discover the true flavors of all your foods. I recommend buying a steamer to cook your veggies. Also, look for Herb-Ox Very Low Sodium bouillon powders (they come in chicken and beef flavors) in your supermarket, and use them to flavor your soups and gravies (I wish I could buy Herb-Ox in Canada, but Hormel will not ship across the border). Substitute pepper and other spices and herbs for salt on your meats and in your omelettes. Substitute Swiss cheese for cheddar. I could go on, but I tend to get boring on this subject. Just D-mail me if you want more low-sodium diet tips!

thx june!!!! that darn hormel! perhaps you can order it from these guys???

http://www.hometownfavorites.com/shop/htfg.asp

someone suggested mrs dash no-salt flavoring but yeah the jar is like 4 bucks!

Thanks, Tir_Na_Nog. What an interesting link! No listing for Herb-Ox though. I'll have to stock up on it next time I visit the US. I can imagine the conversation with Canada Customs: "Anything to declare?" "Yes, about a hundred little sachets containing a light brown powder...for making soup." "Walk this way, to the strip search room."

ROFLOL!!!!! You crack me up June!