Everyone will tell you something different. Grandmothers say they use the real butter and real cream because its the real stuff. Others say they grew up on one or the other and its a preference issue. And others will say they are watching their cholesterol so there is no way they'd use real butter.
I'd like you to use butter over margarine, but I also want you to understand WHY. Then you can help me spread the correct nutrition information to others :)
Lets look at Butter first.
Here is an example of a random unsalted butter at the grocery store:
On the front of the package there are 2 significant things:
1) Unsalted vs. Salted which depends on the recipe you are cooking from. Usually just buy unsalted.
2) rBST is a hormone found in some dairy products that you want to avoid. This says its made from cows NOT treated with rBST.
The back is where the nutrition label and ingredients are. The most important part. It tells us that 1 Tablespoon of this butter contains 100 calories, 11 grams of total fat, 0 grams of protein and 0 grams of carbohydrate. Now, butter is a fat so yes its going to have fat. Lowfat butter would defeat the nutritional purpose and be stupid. What is most important here is the breakdown of fat.
All dairy fat is Saturated Fat (sat fat). Sat fat is naturally occurring and our body can process through it and use it, but too much sat fat can cause high cholesterol, artery clogs and heart disease, so you want to make sure you are getting other sources of healthy fats (nuts, seeds, oils, avocado, etc) to balance it out.
Under trans fat, there is 0 grams. Also, under the ingredients, there is nothing that says "hydrogenated" which would indicate trans fats.
Now look at a random Margarine:
On the front, they try to pull you in with "lower in saturated fat" and "no cholesterol". Yes, that is true, it is lower in sat fat and dietary cholesterol, but how do you think they did that? In a lab, that's how.
Turn it over and check out the back, where the important stuff is. You see that 1 Tablespoon of this margarine is similar in calories, 100 calories and 11 grams of fat. 0 grams of protein and carbs. But look at the fat breakdown...
Trans Fat is something you want to avoid completely. The main reason I want you to consume butter over margarine is because of the trans fat issue. Trans fats were created in the 1950's to lower saturated fat and make foods more shelf-stable. However, we are just now finding out that all that did was create a fat that isnt naturally occurring that our bodies dont recognize. Now all those little trans fats we've been eating have been wrecking havoc in our bodies causing damage in the form of free-radicals and contributing to heart disease. This margarine may have less sat fat, but it has 2.5 grams of trans fat and that is 2.5 too many.
Another oddity is the ingredient list. It was only 2 ingredients for the butter, but 12 for margarine?? The word "hydrogenated" (which is just the process the labs use to create a trans fat) appears as the first ingredient. No thank you.
The moral of the story is that since butter is what it is...churned cream...just use the natural stuff. Yes it has sat fat, but your body knows what to do with it and as long as you are eating sat fat in small quantities you will be fine. Trans fats are man-made and its not worth consuming things made in labs to avoid a few grams of saturated fat.
The only exception to this Butter over Margarine rule is butter spreads made with plant sterols and stanols which Ill talk about next blog.
Now go check your fridge.
Ashley
