{"id":189,"date":"2021-11-28T02:02:15","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T02:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/?p=189"},"modified":"2021-12-08T17:33:57","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T17:33:57","slug":"are-you-still-opting-for-margarine-over-butter-read-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/28\/are-you-still-opting-for-margarine-over-butter-read-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You Still Opting For Margarine Over Butter? Read This!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At last, the truth: Butter is GOOD for you - and margarine is chemical gunk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have been conned into believing margarine was better for us than butter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scientific evidence is totally at odds with decades of official advice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The profit-grabbing manufacturers have never been prepared to admit<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Joanna Blythman<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like my grandmother before me, I have never had a tub of margarine in the house. Perhaps thanks to her, my gut instinct has always told me that butter is better for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only does butter taste incomparably better, it's a natural product that human beings have been eating and cooking with for centuries without \u00addamaging their health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why swap it for margarine, a highly synthetic and unpleasant-tasting concoction laced with additives and cheap, low-grade oils refined on an industrial scale?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth: Evidence shows butter is better for you than margarine despite decades of advice to the contrary

Especially, if I tell you that without colorings margarine isn't yellow at all, but actually an appetite-crushing shade of sludgy grey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If my preference for butter began with instinct, in the past few years it's been supported by a growing body of scientific research that not only indicates that there is absolutely no reason to stop eating \u00adbutter, but also leads to one inescapable conclusion: that decades of government health advice, particularly in regard to heart disease, cholesterol levels and the consumption of fats and oils, have been plain wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's so wrong, in fact, that I believe the health establishment now owes us an apology.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have been conned into believing that margarine was better for us than butter. The nation's morning toast has been ruined for decades by kind-hearted women thinking they were doing the best for their \u00adhusbands and children by switching from butter to marge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confronted with such a bleak, butter-free future, there will be many who will have wondered whether life was even worth living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why the latest news from scientists working in the U.S. will have been greeted with loud cheers at breakfast tables all over Britain \u2014 and, at mine, by a vehement 'I told you so!'<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For, having reanalysed a study originally carried out in the late Sixties and early Seventies, the scientists have confirmed what many of us have believed to be the truth for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margarine isn't better for you than butter. In fact, margarine is \u00adactually more damaging to your health than butter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scientific evidence is compelling and totally at odds with decades of official advice that we should all be cutting down on our consumption of animal fats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking a sample of middle-aged Australian men who had either experienced a heart attack or \u00adsuffered from angina, half were advised to cut their animal fat intake and replace it with safflower oil (which is similar to sunflower oil) and safflower oil margarine, while the other half continued to eat as normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the unholy alliance of Government nutritionists and the food processing industry were right \u2014 and margarine really was better for you, as they've been claiming for decades \u2014 you'd expect the men who switched to safflower oil to live longer and have better health outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exact opposite turned out to be true. Those who ate more of the safflower-derived products were almost twice as likely to die from all causes, including heart disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly, margarine isn't looking the healthy option that those expensive marketing campaigns claim it to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a start, the once widely accepted wisdom that saturated fats are bad for you \u2014 an idea on which so much health advice is founded \u2014 is looking increasingly shaky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So fast is the shift in scientific thinking that there is a growing belief that natural saturated fats \u2014 like those contained in dairy and meat, as opposed to those \u00adcontained in marge \u2014 may actually turn out to be good for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, these fats have already been identified as key components of cell membranes, essential for the production of \u00adcertain \u00adhormones and having an important role to play in the transport and absorption of certain vitamins and minerals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, earlier this week, a meta-study (a study of studies, if you like) from America, covering almost 350,000 people, came to the sort of shock conclusion that a few years earlier would have made front-page news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Losing faith: Our faith in the \u00adofficial health agencies melting away faster than .\u00bf.\u00bf. well, butter off a hot knife

Why we should believe the manufacturers a second time around I haven't a clue \u2014 especially as they never took responsibility for the tremendous damage they had done to global health with their hydrogenated fats \u2014 which are now banned in parts of the U.S. because of the concerns about the effects they have on our health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best part of 20 years on, the components of margarine, or 'spreads' as food processors prefer to call them, may have changed, but the arguments over their impact on health have not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take the so-called cholesterol-busting spreads such as Benecol and Flora ProActiv. Yes, they use plant chemicals \u2014 sterols and stanols \u2014 to reduce cholesterol \u00adlevels, but they do so at a time when long-held beliefs on cholesterol are beginning to look as shaky as those about saturated fats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is emerging scientific evidence that overall health \u00adprospects may be better for \u00adindividuals with above-average \u00adlevels of cholesterol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, beliefs that have shaped official health diktats for decades are being turned on their head. More research urgently needs to be done, but that apology should precede it. 'We got it wrong \u2014 sorry,' would be a good start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the so-called hybrid spreads, such as Lurpak Spreadable, for example \u2014 well, butter mixed with a little vegetable oil may be conveniently spreadable, but is fairly pointless in a country where, for most of the year, butter is spreadable when kept at room \u00adtemperature in a good, old-\u00adfashioned butter dish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the good news is that we can carry on eating butter (in moderation, of course) or even start eating it again if we were one of the millions duped into swapping it for unhealthy and unpalatable margarine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as we do, our faith in the \u00adofficial health agencies that shape our nation's health policies is melting away faster than .\u2009.\u2009. well, butter off a hot knife.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At last, the truth: Butter is GOOD for you - and margarine is chemical gunk We have been conned into believing margarine was better for us than butter The scientific evidence is totally at odds with decades of official advice The profit-grabbing manufacturers have never been prepared to admit By Joanna Blythman Like my grandmother ...continue reading \"Are You Still Opting For Margarine Over Butter? Read This!\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,33,23,17,8,5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-189","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-a-better-way","7":"category-childrens-health","8":"category-family-health","9":"category-nutrition-and-supplements","10":"category-things-you-should-know","11":"category-towards-better-health","12":"category-toxic-food-and-chemicals","13":"h-entry","14":"hentry","15":"h-as-article"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/letscareforhealth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}