If you want to know why you shouldn’t eat margarine have a look here - How is margarine made?
I gave up margarine or imitation butter a few years back but trying to eat real food made me want to take another look at what i was eating by eating butter. Ignoring the advertising on this site, the information on How is butter made? makes sense.
So again i went over to my local supermarket and see what they have to offer.
This is my usual – It contains the following added ingredients 1.7g salt, 80% milk fat. I don’t mind butter with added salt because i don’t add salt to my cooking and i eat very few products that actually contain salt.
Compared with a popular more expensive brand they both contained the same added ingredients.
This supposed to be better for you than butter, so the advertising would have us believe anyway. Rapeseed Oil , Water , Vegetable Oil , Plant Stanol Ester (Plant Stanol 7%) , Salt (1.2%) , Buttermilk Powder (1%) , Emulsifier (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Soya Lecithin) , Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid) , Flavourings , Vitamin A , Colour (Carotenes) , Vitamin D .
Olive spread - Vegetable Oils (including Olive Oil 22%) , Water , Whey Powder (Milk) , Salt (1.3%) , Stabiliser (Sodium Alginate) , Emulsifier (Mono and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids) , Lactic Acid , Natural Flavouring , Vitamins A and D , Colour (Carotenes) .
Organic butter - Contains Milk. Contains Organic Milk and 1.4g salt/100g
Random spreadable butter because they are all about the same - Vegetable Oils (42% Seed Oils) , Buttermilk (29%) , Water , Skimmed Milk , Cream , Salt (1.7%) , Emulsifiers (E471, Soya Lecithin) , Natural Flavourings , Colour (Natural Beta Carotene) .
I have picked a few here but all the butters were about the same, as were the spreadable butters, the olive butters, etc. I picked at random to illustrate a point not to point out that one is better or worse than another. I am here to say what someone else should or shouldn’t be eating or using but i did manage to change my sister’s thinking and she now eats butter. As for me, i will be eating butter with added salt. You never know if i get brave i might make my own but not planning on it. Butter is the only real food the rest are imitation no matter what they say. The secret of eating butter is to not over do it, use it sparingly.
I agree with you so much on this one (although I try really really hard to avoid salt and find that butter is a good opportunity to cut back painlessly – but not everybody needs to bother, I think). I grew up on margarine – then I tried some of the unsalted kind. Gah. It tasted like something scraped out of the bottom of a tank at a chemical factory.
At least butter is really food – not the healthiest food in large amounts, but anything people have been eating for hundreds of years can’t be too deadly!
I think margarine was the cheap alternative to butter but now with all the fancy spreads its really not that different. What was interesting to note is that the Smart price was the same as the expensive stuff.
I gave up margarine a few years ago as well,
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I’m a butter person, too. I agree, Beverley, use it sparingly. Baking and cooking is much better tasting with real butter. Can’t fool a butter person!
but they still try