# Are you nearly eating dustbin bags?....



## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

Hi.
Butter or Margarine, fact or fiction? 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pass The Butter ... Please... 

This is more than 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 colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavourings. 
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 for margarine. 

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, and 
only because they are added! 

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours 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. 

Triples 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 times. 

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... and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT. 

These facts alone were 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 open in your garage or a shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice 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?


----------



## Glandwr (Jun 12, 2006)

Very instructional, thanks Ray. When this sort of thing is exposed (deep down a lot of us knew it) one wonders at the morality of the food industry. 

Ready prepared, and processed foods have a huge reponsiblity for our epidemic of ill health and obesity. 

What is the answer? Free enterprise/market supporters say that it is the individual (that's us) that have the freedom to choose.

The other extreme say that gov. should intervene with taxes, advertising bans etc..

So far the former have won the day with the only curbs on on our exploitation being weak and voluntary, proposed by the producers/retailers themselves with a PR fanfare.

Poor health caused by poor diet is/will cost us more than smoking and drinking put together in NHS cost and invalidity benefits.

Any views?


----------



## pippin (Nov 15, 2007)

Back in the 60's we brought a cargo of soya bean from Canada to a factory in Fredrikstad, Norway.

There were barrels of all sorts of different oils (palm, whale & etc) on the wharf.

Out of one end of the factory came margarine.

Out of the other end came, wait for it, washing soap powder!


----------



## locovan (Oct 17, 2007)

Ray must admit I ran this through snopes but it said it couldnt find it there fore this has to be true and it doesnt surprise me.
Chemicals are used far to much and so this is where our health must suffer.
Seem's to me we should all go back to eating Butter and cream etc etc in smaller quantities maybe and live a healthy life.


----------



## gromett (May 9, 2005)

I seem to remember Napoleon wanted this for his troups as a replacement to butter so it has been around a lot longer than 100 Yrs.

As for the rest of it show me the scientific proof. This reads like a scare story put out by the dairy industry tbh. Elements of truth but....

Yes margarine is white naturally we only find this distasteful because we are used to the golden colour of butter.

The problem we have today is that there are very few margarine products as most of the spreads such as "I can't believe its not butter" and Clover are not actually margarines.

*I* do not believe the bit about fattening turkeys and their deaths is correct.

Margarine was originally an emulsion of animal fats, but later vegetable oils were used. I do not see how this can be any worse for you than butter. Modern spreads are definately better for you than butter as they are lower in saturated fats amongst other things.

Anyway without doing more research I think this story although interesting has more holes than a tetley tea bag sorry.

Karl


----------



## gromett (May 9, 2005)

I couldn't believe the research bit about 53% more heart disease. Went on Google and found
http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/margarine.html

Its not margarine that causes this but hydrogenated vegetable oil. I have know about this for a while which is why I avoid products with hydrogenated oils in them. My peanut butter for instances specifically states it doesn't have any in it.

All you have to look for on the label of your marg/spread etc is trans fats content. Buy the tub varieties rather than stick varieties and marg/spreads are far better for you than butter.

Anyway the above article covers the rest of the points.
Also check out
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/butter-vs-margarine/AN00835

Karl

EDIT: It is on snopes http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/butter.asp


----------



## gromett (May 9, 2005)

Just found something really interesting as I continue to research this subject.
It is with some relief I found this.

"In the United Kingdom there are no brands of spread on sale which contain any partially hydrogenated oils. Although fortification with Vitamin A & D is still mandatory for margarine, it is only a voluntary requirement for other spreads"

Suprisingly....
"Some animal-derived foods, such as butter, milk and beef contain trans fatty acids at levels around 3-6% 1 and partial hydrogenation, a process where liquid, unsaturated oils can be turned into solid, saturated fats can result in the formation of up to 60% TFAs as a by-product of the process. Total hydrogenation gives typically less than 1% trans fatty acids. The good news is that most of us are eating well within the recommended limits for TFAs, so we do not need to worry too much about them at all."

So Margarine is in fact better for you than Butter 

Karl


----------

