# Butter Or Margarine?



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Butter or margarine or other varieties of yellow spread?


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Butter of course.

There are so many studies about the impact of fats that one is  The simplest thing is to choose the most natural option - butter - any other water/fat emulsion will have all sorts of nasty additives and nobody knows what sort of fats they're using.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I read the thread title as "Butter Or Magazine?" Thought it was a rather strange comparison....


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I rarely use it but when I do I prefer that olive oil-based spread that's advertised on TV. Used to be called Olivio but I keep forgetting it's current name. If I were to buy butter then it would be Lurpak.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Have always loved butter; for quite a long time we were on F***, the famous sunflower spread, and I don't mind that as much as some of the other soft margarines. 

Latest research (& apparently not funded by the Butter Council) says that butter is less harmful than thought.

Edit: Flora


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Taggart said:


> Butter of course.
> 
> There are so many studies about the impact of fats that one is  The simplest thing is to choose the most natural option - butter - any other water/fat emulsion will have all sorts of nasty additives and nobody knows what sort of fats they're using.


Yes, for years we used margarine because it was supposed to be better for the heart. Now, no-one seems to know anymore, so we switched to the natural product as well.


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2015)

The natural thing, not the industrial grease.

:tiphat:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Ingelou, you may want to add another asterisk there, heh heh... I don't think you'll be browbeaten by the Advertising Without Authorisation Police for saying Flora in any case.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Taggart said:


> Butter of course.
> 
> There are so many studies about the impact of fats that one is  The simplest thing is to choose the most natural option - butter - any other water/fat emulsion will have all sorts of nasty additives and nobody knows what sort of fats they're using.


Amen to this :tiphat:


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2015)

and if you're baking....GOT to be butter!


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

I voted "None." Coconut oil and olive oil meet my needs.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Everything's better with butter!


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I only use butter. Margarines are artificially hardened vegetable oils, hardened by a process known as hydrogenation, that gives these liquid oils a solid, buttery consistency. Hydrogenated oils are now also known as trans fats. Trace amounts of trans fat do occur naturally—in red meat, I believe. There are some margarines that claim to be heart healthy. I don't know what logic allows them to make this spurious claim. I am not interested: they are industrially altered oils and I want real food. When only margarine or liquid/powder edible oil based coffee whiteners and similar products are available, I go without. I use butter for frying (mixed half and half with heat-stable vegetable oil), on bread, on vegetables and on pasta, over popped corn, etc., in moderation and taking into account the total fat content of my food.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Margarine: for me, out of the question.
Butter is of course very nice, but 75% butter / 25 % margarine or 50-50% spreads have become very popular here, and while it´s less fattening, it still has plenty of taste.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I think butter is often too hard that it destroys the bread so I prefer margarine.


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2015)

Sloe said:


> I think butter is often too hard that it destroys the bread so I prefer margarine.


...so it's kept in a butter dish, with lid, out of the fridge...:tiphat:


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Neither ... and since I was 13 years of age to boot. It must be a family trait as my uncle also quit both when he was 13. 

I don't miss it ... and I can live comfortable without either. Same goes for mayonnaise and sour cream. Can't even stand the sight of either - makes me queasy in the stomach.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Leaving aside health concerns, margarine tastes bad. As many chefs have said, you can't have too much butter.


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## Bix (Aug 12, 2010)

I completely agree with Taggert on this one.

I do however belive that we have to careful not to talk too much about this as it is so difficult and depressing to choose with so much choice, but then, as is said - folks who are depressed in developed countries do not really know what true hardship is.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

That's what I read, that butter is obviously all natural but margarine ain't. But have always preferred butter anyway. Hot melted butter even better. 

Edit: normal full fat butter, not salt reduced either.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Butter any day, margarine tastes like chemistry-food. Any way I thought it was a common sense fact that butter don't make You fat, it is all those carbs and sugars that are the reason of the obese populations!

/ptr


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I was raised on margarine, because back in the day it was supposed to be healthier. It's a wonder my heart is still ticking. 

Nowadays, it's all butter. Like that old song says, "I like bread and butter. I like toast and jam. That's what my baby feeds me. I'm her loving man."


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I was for butter even when it was believed to be the unhealthier option.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Childhood memory: I went in for major surgery when I was about four (this was before 1950). I was told I screamed my head off because they wouldn't give me butter with my meals. They said, "But it _is _butter!" I still screamed.

Turns out that I had only had margarine in my short life, since we were quite poor. But my parents always called it butter for some reason, so that's what I thought it was.

Codocil: The dairy industry in Oregon had gotten legislation that margarine could only be sold without food coloring, it its sickly white form. But it was sold with a small pack of food coloring in the box, and a plastic back to mix it. I remember clearly my mother kneading that bag endlessly to get the red spot of coloring to permeate the entire pound of margarine. Haven't thought about this for years.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

GreenMamba said:


> I was for butter even when it was believed to be the unhealthier option.


Edit: I should point out I'm mostly talking about cooking. I think butter is more indispensable for cooking/baking than as a spread.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Hot melted butter even better.


To dip those nice fat artichoke leaves into! Even better when only the center of the 'choke is left.

Or, if you please, for dipping a lobster, butterflied and steamed just right. This is making me very hungry.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Brush some hot melted butter on a corncorb.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Marlon Brando liked a bit of butter.


I'll get my coat...


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Don't even understand how someone can like margarine better. Although I like to make butter because the stuff at the local grocers is pretty bland.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I'm a butter person now, but when a college student, margarine was mostly used. Cheap, and you could leave it unrefrigerated forever. 

For curiosity sake, I Googled for butter/margarine taste tests. Of a few I looked at, it seemed the easiest test in picking out butter from the substitutes, was when spreading each on bread.

Picking butter became harder when it and the substitutes were used in cooking. Higher-priced substitutes usually garnered the better grades.

Jus' sayin'. :tiphat:


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I like butter because of the taste and the naturalness. But I also like margarine, because, isn't there a Napoleon connection to the history of margarine? As a huge Napoleon fanboy, I cannot resist that.


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2015)

Butter for taste, margarine for spreadability


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Butter for taste, margarine for spreadability


So which one do you actually eat more often?


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

GreenMamba said:


> Edit: I should point out I'm mostly talking about cooking. I think butter is more indispensable for cooking/baking than as a spread.


That's true ... some recipes just don't perform well without butter. As long as I don't have to add it myself ... !

There are substitutes for some things though - I find using apple sauce as a substitute for liquid oil when baking a cake works quite well.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Neither. I prefer to use leftover bacon grease. Waste not!


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Years ago I regularly bought Willow Run margarine because it was 20 cents cheaper than the cheapest brand name margarine. One day I looked at the ingredients list and discovered that the primary ingredient was "deodorized lard." I went back to regular margarine.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

geralmar said:


> Years ago I regularly bought Willow Run margarine because it was 20 cents cheaper than the cheapest brand name margarine. One day I looked at the ingredients list and discovered that the primary ingredient was "deodorized lard." I went back to regular margarine.


 What might "deodorized lard" be? I hope I haven't been eating that.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> What might "deodorized lard" be? I hope I haven't been eating that.


I misread that as *demonised* lard!


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> What might "deodorized lard" be? I hope I haven't been eating that.


Talk of lard reminded me of this:


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Just took a cooking class in Paris on croissants. The instructor stated the croissants made with margarine bend in shape.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

what the heck is margarine


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Lard is, in fact, outstanding for pie crust, biscuits (American, not English), and a bunch of other stuff.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I went to a two- or three-week language course in Austria when I was about 15. I remember having read from my German schoolbook that they use lard on bread in Austria, and I was deathly afraid before the trip, as I thought that one should not refuse to eat local dishes. Luckily, I was never offered the stuff... but I do remember the fear and anxiety!


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

^ Schmaltz

It is a delicacy, great on rye bread. Often, it has fried onions added for extra flavour.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I just had some plain simple bread rolls with dinner, spread some good old butter. 

The simplest foods in life and just wonderful, in this case bread rolls with butter.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Wiki sez, "A slice of bread spread with lard was a typical staple in traditional rural cuisine of many countries."


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2015)

Can I say barf?


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2015)

"Toasted, nutty" buttery taste. These are divine>>>

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jun/24/how-make-perfect-blondies-felicity-cloake

(The recipe is at the bottom of the article. Remember, don't just melt the butter: toast it)


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> So which one do you actually eat more often?


I don't eat one more often than the other.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

brotagonist said:


> ^ Schmaltz
> 
> It is a delicacy, great on rye bread. Often, it has fried onions added for extra flavour.


Yes, you still encounter this in restaurants in Germany. It's delicious, though some people are repelled by the idea.


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## Oebis (Nov 23, 2014)

Vegemite all the way, baby.


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

Someone told me that at body temperature butter is a liquid and Margarine is a solid. So what do you want circulating in your blood vessels, a liquid that will continue to flow, of a solid that will get stuck in the small vessels?


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Wiki sez, "A slice of bread spread with lard was a typical staple in traditional rural cuisine of many countries."


Sounds yummy.

When my grandparents butchered an animal, my father was always assigned the job of cooking the lard. It seems that when he did it, it always came out nice and white, other people would let it scorch, and it would turn brown. Grandma preffered it to be white when she used it.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

breakup said:


> Someone told me that at body temperature butter is a liquid and Margarine is a solid. So what do you want circulating in your blood vessels, a liquid that will continue to flow, of a solid that will get stuck in the small vessels?


Believe it or not, you have an intestine that breaks everything you eat into small molecules for transport across its cells into your bloodstream. You won't have margarine or butter circulating in your bloodstream. Unless you've been mainlining them, in which case you can worry...

Butter, by the way, but like a lot of others in this country I actually use a lower fat buttermilk-vegetable oil hybrid for everyday use.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

A lot of my favorite foods are solid at room temperature.


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

GreenMamba said:


> A lot of my favorite foods are solid at room temperature.


But once you eat them do they stay at room temperature, and if they do, how do you manage that trick? Now I see it, you're a mamba, which exists at room temperature, good for you, but most of your foods would be at a mammals body temperature, which is higher than room temperature, depending on the local climate.


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

TurnaboutVox said:


> Believe it or not, you have an intestine that breaks everything you eat into small molecules for transport across its cells into your bloodstream. You won't have margarine or butter circulating in your bloodstream. Unless you've been mainlining them, in which case you can worry...


I knew that, I just wanted to see if anyone else would catch that little detail.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Margarine is disgusting. Even the flies don't like it. We need some fat in our diet, and foods like butter and certain fish fats are healthy and can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.


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## breakup (Jul 8, 2015)

starthrower said:


> Margarine is disgusting. Even the flies don't like it. We need some fat in our diet, and foods like butter and certain fish fats are healthy and can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.


And most people don't realize this, they have been taken in by the advertising of the anti-fat crowd. Fat is the fuel that powers the body, sugar is only used to start the process, and shouldn't be considered the main source of energy for the body.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I can't think of anything that tastes good, is naturally healthy that could go with dry hot toast other than melted ... you guessed it ... melted butter.


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## Potiphera (Mar 24, 2011)

Though I would prefer pure unsalted butter, I can't have it because my cholesterol, I avoid animal fats. 
Instead I use Flora with Olive Oil, though I'm told to go easy on Olive Oil , which I also love to use in cooking or basting. 

So life goes on in my muddly way thinking I'm doing the right thing. Flora has other additives which I'm not sure that it is good for you, but I used I anyway.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I thought the results might have been more _evenly spread _(ouch...)


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