I buy butter. I feel that used sparingly, it is worth it. Had some top quality soft margarine lately while dining out and I was really surprised - it was quite good! Perhaps there is a place for both?

Butter.

I grew up on margarine -- never again!

Butter! Grass-fed if I can find it.

Good butter is worth the money. I only use about 2 tablespoons a week, but I will never use margarine. Natural always trumps man made.

Real vs. Chemicals...

I go real with butter.

If spreading is an issue, you can just DIY "tub margarine" by softening butter and stirring in a little olive oil. It makes it easier to spread, if you keep your butter in the refrigerator (let us please not visit that debate again).

I love butter, but I save it for special occasions. For my morning toast or quick evening pasta I use Smart Balance or another margarine that has canola or olive oil or other healthy oil. I think it is delicious - margarine has come a long way in the last few years.

I love butter. I don't know how anyone could be without butter. Plus I don't really like to eat things if I can't easily identify the ingredients...

Butter. I would never eat margarine. I pass it by even when it's the only option available, like on planes.

I use both, but sparingly. Butter for baking, and fleishchmann's olive oil spread for the rare spreading on toast or corn cob. Just because I looove the taste, not for any illusions about health.

I use + enjoy Earth Balance in place of butter, as I'm vegan. It tastes really great, it's natural and non-hydrogenated. I don't consider it "healthy" and I very rarely use it- only for certain baked goods (cookies + frostings) and occasionally spreading it on cornbread, pancakes, etc. However, if I consumed dairy, I think I'd certainly choose butter in place just because it's so tasty.

USE BUTTER!!!! Please read Omnivores Dilemma, In Defense of Food and Food Rules! It is real, pure and unadulterated. Buy from local sources so that you know where your food is coming from!!

i bought some margarine for summer use since i like easy to spread butter for toast in the a.m., but in the summer heat i don't really like the oil puddle it turns into from sitting out on the counter. i bought earth balance from tj's and it's pretty much inedible for toast as it's so SALTY! it's fine for scrambling eggs or sauteeing veggies but that's not why i bought it. i just don't remember the margarine from my childhood being so salty but maybe i'm just more sensitive to salt nowadays. who knows!

i think i'll try the DIY route with the olive oil mixed in with butter. great idea!

Butter for cooking/baking but for pancakes or toast, use whipped smart balance margarine.

Baking with margarine is out of the question. Real butter, real cream - in moderation and make sure to visit the gym occasionally.
...That said I do sometimes use margarine for toast.

Real butter please. I rather use butter sparingly than anything those plastic substitutes in plastic tubs.

For me the choice is pretty obvious: one real ingredient, or several ingredients processed into a man-made spread. I'll go with the real and simple, without the confusion about what's in a processed concoction.

I'm always careful about amounts and haven't found it to be an issue.

Wow, I've rarely seen so much consensus on blog comments!

I'm a real butter user here too, but we use margarine for my daughter who is lactose intolerant. She swears butter triggers problems for her even tho I've read butter contains very little lactose- I can't convince her of that, tho. :)

i love butter. and i believe if i am being supper healthy with everything, and i mean everything, no corn syrup, no coke, no coffee, no trans fats, no aspertain, no this no that. i am allowed to use as much butter as i want. i think it balances out it the end, or at least i lie to my self. and it taste soooooo frigin good! hahaha.

I didn't realize this was even up for debate?
Butter wins <3

I forget if it was Michael Pollan or another food advocate, but somewhere it was mentioned that Americans can't stand the sight of visible fat on their food (a pat of butter over vegetables, a drizzle of oil, etc) where, that's actually healthier than food loaded with fat you can't see.

Butter, hands down. It tastes amazing and I know all what all the ingredients are. I try to only feed my children things I can make myself. I can make butter, I just usually buy it.

Butter! I don't use it often enough to kill me. Smart Balance isn't a bad alternative though.

Butter to cook, margarine to spread (except on fresh, out-of-the-oven bread). Butter tastes too 'heavy' when spread imo.

Butter!! I think my southern family would renounce me if I ever touched the other stuff. And I would die inside a little.

sar3j: I love the thought of eating only what you can make yourself! I'll have to explore that idea.

Butter smooshed together with Vegamite on a muffin! Butter smooshed with sorghum on a biscuit! Thank you, cows. You are 'udderly' divine beasts.

Eat lard instead of butter. Lard is only about 40% saturated fat while butter is 60+% saturated.

If people really think about these choices, the answer is so obvious. It's science vs. nature...

Our bodies know what to do with nature, but not so much with science!

We need to step back and realize that we're being told what's good for us and not learning for ourselves. The less food is processed, obviously is better, I don't think anyone can deny that.

ok, everyone I know yells at me for this, but for spreading and eating, I prefer margerine. It has that a flavor that I can actually taste on my toast or corn. I tried using real butter as a spread, but it just tastes greasy for me. For baking/cooking, nothing beats real butter.

Butter is not butter.

We buy pastured butter when we can. Quite a lot healthier and delicous to boot.

What??? Margarine? Canola oil?? Worst.Choices.Ever. Butter IS good for you!
Do yourself a favor, and learn the truth about fat. Go to www.westonaprice.org

Where's ilovebutter when you need her? :-)

BUTTER.

We've switched away from margarine and I'm never going back. It's amazing, and healthy. The dangers of saturated fat are way over-rated.

"I didn't realize this was even up for debate?", ha!

It's right up there with "Are eggs meat?"

We only eat Smart Balance margarine. Yes, butter is a natural food and it will kill you if you eat enough of it. "Natural" doesn't necessarily mean "healthy" and I believe in using all the tools at my disposal in my quest for health.

another locavore here who cannot IMAGINE promoting margarine over butter. Fat does not make you fat!

Anything with trans fat has no place in my home and really shouldn't have a place on the markets (in my opinion). Even "in moderation" trans fats have been found to be extremely detrimental to our health.

Besides, 1/4-1/2 tsp. of butter can cover a slice of bread and really isn't all that bad for you if you're having it once a day.

I try to keep the trans fats out of my home (my boyfriend isn't quite with the program on that one), but I also watch saturated fats, so no butter for me.

I wish people would stop forgetting that fat is an important part of our diets. We need 60-70 grams per day give or take. I'll happily spend some of those on a delicious and natural product such as butter.

Chemical laden foods, hydrogenated oils, and items made with more than 3-4 ingredients (especially those I don't recognize as food) are what disturb me.

What it really come down to though - butter just tastes sooo much better.

yep, butter or nothing. I use all fat in moderation--mostly olive oil to cook with. If you're slathering, you're probably using too much anyway.

I love butter, but I'm really sensitive to dairy. :( I use Earth Balance, and....it'll do.

Wait, @enricosm - why is canola oil the worst choice ever? I'd heard it was on a par with olive oil, monounsaturated and what have you. I need to know before my next batch of zucchini muffins! Halp!

More on topic: butter all the way. Fake foods make me suspicious. I like @sar3j's philosophy. (But paradoxically, at a restaurant I order only what I CAN'T make at home!)

I'm sure the ADA is giving Ms Klammer-Hodges a big old pat in the back right now for regurgitating the standard party line, rather than looking at and evaluating current research.

Sorry. I don't mean to be so cynical (or rude), but when I read things like this it makes my blood boil. I too am a dietitian and it makes me cringe to share my profession with people who can't get their thinking out of the 80s.

First off, a major meta analysis of 350,000 people was published in the Am J of Clin Nutr earlier this year which showed a ZERO % increased risk of CVD associated with saturated fat consumption.

Second, the reason why saturated fats (SFA) were vilified in the first place was because of early epidemiological studies done in the 50s which lumped SFA and trans fats together, a time when trans fats were used in massive abundance. The recommendation to avoid SFA stuck since it's in the govt's interest to encourage the people to consume tons of corn and soybean oil. How convenient.

Third, SATURATED FATS ARE NOT BAD. Further, POLYUNSATURATED FATS ARE NOT HEART HEALTHY.

Sorry to yell. But this very point tweaks me as a nutritionist.

Yes, saturated fats raise LDL (which is why they are "bad"), and yes, polyunsaturated fats lower LDL (which makes them "good"). BUT LDL in it's natural state is not harmful. When it is oxidized is when it is taken up by the macrophages and deposited in arterial plaques. Saturated fats don't oxidize! PUFAs, on the other hand, are 100 times more prone to oxidation than SFAs. So, while PUFA may lower your LDL a few points, they make it many, many times more likely to oxidize and wind up in your arterial plaques.

This, btw, is what I think explains the "French Paradox" -- yes, wine is great, but I think it's their high consumption of SFAs (butter, cream, etc) and low consumption of PUFAs (corn/soy/safflower) that is keeping their arteries clear.

So for my patients, I focus on making dietary changes to reduce LDL oxidation rather than reducing the LDL number. This means limiting corn, soy and safflower oils, eating tons of fresh fruit and veg, and making butter, bacon fat*, and olive oil the major dietary fats.

Fourth, how can you improve butter? I guess Ms Klammer-Hodges is not familiar with the research on grass-feeding and conjugated linoleic acid, a healthy type of fat which may protect against heart disease and cancer, and may also be helpful for losing weight.

Fifth -- margarines are typically made from corn and/or soy bean oil which are very high in omega-6. Omega-6, in over abundance as it is in the American diet, creates a strong pro-inflammatory response worsening heart disease, asthma, arthritis, and other inflammatory conditions. Yet another way corn and soy bean oil are killing us.

So, in summary, butter all the way. Avoid corn and soybean oil. I personally consider them poison.

* Bacon fat, btw, is 50% oleic acid -- the same fat that's in olive oil. So by all means, please do save and use your bacon drippings.

</rant>

PS -- Dear Apartment Therapy/The Kitchn,

If you're seriously considering adding a dietian to your staff, please consider adding one who is also a natural foods foodie, and knows the value of real food over chemicals. Please do not hire someone who will just regurgitate played ADA/Food Pyramid rhetoric.

(Oh, and please hire me instead. :) )

and @breezyslp: here I am! It warmed my heart to see your comment!

butter, Butter, BUTTER!

Thank you "ilovebutter" for some informed comments.

Look, industrial food is what'll harm you, including butter, margarine, and "tastes like butter."

Use local, butter from pastured cows and see how "fluid" and DELICIOUS it is. Why? Because it also has a high oleic acid content.

And RIGHT ON with pork from pigs that are raised right. Pasture, acorns and nuts. Basically, "wild salmon on the hoof"! And SOOOO good!

-- Raoul

By the way, Raoul Picante, pigs are omnivores, not herbivores, so "pasture, acorns and nuts" isn't necessarily what makes for the healthiest pigs and pork. Pigs will eat ANYTHING, and their bodies will successfully process anything (within the limits of what is natural, that is). Having room to move, forage and wallow, and not being pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, are more meaningful when it comes to good-quality pork than having a very restricted diet or being fed "organic" food.

Now back on topic!

I certainly understand that people want to eat real, whole, unprocessed foods, and why that's important. However, when you choose butter over a heart-healthy margarine (i.e., one that doesn't contain trans fats), what you're doing is opting for a known health risk--it's well established that eating saturated fat increases cholesterol, thus increasing your chances of heart disease--rather than a possible-potential-maybe-kinda-sorta risk from "chemical" ingredients in the margarine. If the "chemicals" freak you out, use olive or canola oil rather than margarine.

I use fake butters with unpleasant taste and texture since I want to support my husband's efforts to be healthier, and he believes that they are better for him. I may show him this post. Happily, we both like olive oil and usually use it instead of the fake butters.

@STH -- actually, it's not an established fact that saturated fats (and thereby inc LDL) causes heart disease (in medicine it's actually referred to as the "lipid hypothesis").

There is a lot more to the LDL story that simply the number. What is the patterning? (small and dense, or light and fluffy?) What percentage is oxidizing? How much apo(b) is there? Saturated fats, by the way, give you a more favorable LDL profile (oxidation, pattern). Polyunsaturated fats, like those found in margarine, may lower your LDL, but they convert it to more harmful LDL (small, dense, and oxidizes like crazy), and increase inflammation in the body. Also -- biopsies of arterial plaques have revealed that it's polyunsaturated fats that are deposited in them, NOT saturated fats.

It might make you feel good to see a low LDL, but realize that this comes at a price to your arteries.

@Raoul -- right on! Pigs *are* omnivores, but raising them on pasture where they can borrow and forage will give them a natural diet (worms, bugs, etc). In TX I used to get this bacon from forest-raised, acorn-fed Berkshire pigs. Best lard ever. When I moved back to New England, I brought 10 lbs of the bacon with me. Boy, I miss those pigs.

Butter, butter, all the way! Especially pasture fed.

@ilovebutter-- thanks so much for your informed (and passionate) comments. I don't think I've ever seen this explained so clearly and convincingly. I also appreciate the love for bacon fat. If I mention cooking with it, people get the most horrified looks on their faces. But if you start with good bacon from happy, responsibly raised pigs, they're really isn't anything like it. I do have a question: what about duck fat? Is it along the same lines? I've read that it's not such a bad fat as people tend to think (in moderation, of course.) After all, it is natural. What are your thoughts?

I buy according to the amount of ingredients a product has - the less the better. Butter is a natural product, it is just cream. I was raised eating butter and will always do so. Everything in moderation is just fine.

AMEN, ilovebutter! Saturated fats are NOT bad for you and industrial vegetable oils ARE poison. I cook primarily with butter, lard (that I render myself from local pastured pigs), bacon fat, and sometimes olive or coconut oil. My local farmer even gives me lard for free because apparently nobody wants it! The message that these foods are healthful needs to be spread and people need to realize that their bodies need fat, good fat, and lots of it. I used to be a vegan and cannot believe that I ever considered Earth Balance and processed soy "foods" healthy. Right now I am working my way through Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and am just blown away by the amount of information that has been handed down as fact when it is actually pure speculation not supported by the science. Taubes' book is incredibly dense and filled to the brim with scientific studies, but it is so worth it. I wish more people would put the effort into learning the truth behind the lipid hypothesis, the low fat craze, and the obesity epidemic, instead of blindly accepting "conventional wisdom" as infallible.

I enjoy reading this site, but posts like this make me very sad for the state of nutritional information here.

Earth Balance all the way. It's the only ethical option.

Yikes. If I weren't vegan, I would choose pastured butter for taste and health.

Since I am vegan, I choose neither.

Margarine is a food (if you can call it that) that is industrial by nature and doesn't fit into my food selection criteria. I tend to get looks from other vegans when they find out I even pass on the Earth Balance. "It has no trans fat!" Unfortunately, it does have soy protein isolate and a rather poor selection of vegetable oils, most likely cheap leftovers from America's favorite commodity crops (the industrial organic versions, of course!) plus palm oil, the production of which is often socially and environmentally unjust. In my mind, margarine serves no purpose anyway. If one wishes to use butter, one should do so. If not, there's no sense in trying to replace it with a product that is subpar in nutrition and taste.

I personally use oils and fatty whole foods in place of butter, but I do not try to duplicate it. Rather, I embrace the unique properties of the ingredient that I choose to use instead. Generally, I sautée over lower heat and drizzle with olive oil, high heat sautée or pan-fry with coconut oil, bake with both. If I want something spreadable I'll use whole food sources of fat like smashed avocadoes, nut/seed butters and spreads, and olive tapenades depending on what I'm pairing them with, or olive oil/nut based spreads like pestos and bean/nut purées.

Though none of these things pairs as easily as butter does with just about everything, I enjoy finding the perfect pairing between the fatty condiment and its subject. And I definitely prefer it to the idea of using an industrial conglomerate of manipulated franken-fats.

@jubilee -- Glad I could help! It's my life's work to reverse people's unfounded beliefs about bacon. When people look at you cockeyed, tell them that bacon fat has mostly the same type of fat as olive oil, that should put their fears to rest.

Re: duck fat -- good question! I looked it up, and it's an outstanding fat!

33% saturated (mostly palmitic)
49% monounsaturated (mostly oleic acid -- 44% overall)
13% polyunsaturated (no specific breakdown given)

It also contains some vitamin E which will protect those PUFAs from oxidation. Overall, the fatty acid profile is pretty similiar to bacon fat. The high SFA/MUFA and low PUFA, combined with vitamin E make this an especially good fat for cooking with. So, by all means go for it!

Goose fat, btw, is similiar:
28% SFA (mostly palmitic acid)
57% MUFA (54% of total is oleic acid)
11% PUFA
A bit of vitamin E

It should be worth noting that what the animal is fed (obviously) affects the quality of their edibles. Factory farmed animals that are fed a bunch of corn and coy will have higher levels of PUFAs in their body fat, more omega-6 and less omega-3. Pastured animals are more healthy for us to eat. My data source --the USDA Food & Nutrient Database -- does not specify grain/pasture status, so I would assume this info is all factory farmed, grain-fed. Point: make sure to buy local, organic, non-factory farmed for the best results.

@clairee -- I haven't read Gary Taubes' book, but have read some of his articles and he's really excellent. I'll grab his book sometime.

@Marta -- I usually cringe when someone says they are a vegan as images of soy-based meat analogs dance through my head. It sounds like you're doing it in a really smart, wonderful, foodie way. I enjoyed reading your comment!

I thought I would offer a quick primer on fats and a breakdown of common oils/fats.

What's all this saturated business?
"Saturated" refers to the number of double bonds on the fat molecule. Saturated means there are no double bonds. Monounsaturated means there is 1 double bond. Polyunsaturated means there are 2 or more double bonds.

Double bonds are reactive -- they are weak points in the molecule that other molecules can break and do stuff to. Heat and light speed this up. These reactions can create rancidity, toxic compounds, and trans fats (more on that in a sec).

Fats high in saturated fatty acids (SFAs) don't have a lot of double bonds, so they are very stable. This makes them very good for cooking and shelf life. This is why bacon fat can last a long time at room temp.

Monounsaturated fats (MUFAs) are also pretty good, since they only have 1 double bond. They oxidize 10 times more readily than SFAs. They're good for low heat cooking. Please don't fry with them (too hot).

Polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) have 2 or more double bonds. This makes them very delicate, as they oxidize 100 times more readily compared to SFAs. Exposing them to heat causes them to oxidize and break down. Worse, when you cook with them, water in the food can cause the creation of trans fats. Just think of all the places cooking in "heart healthy" PUFAs! This is why you would never, ever cook with flaxseed oil, and it must be kept cold. PUFAs are ok used cold in very small amounts. For example, walnut oil drizzled on a salad, or flax seeds sprinkled on something.

Trans Fats
Trans fats -- these are PUFAs that have had hydrogen gas bubbled through them. The double bonds break, but twist the molecule in a weird way that doesn't occur in nature. When you cook something containing water (which is all food), some of the water will break off into hydrogen and oxygen gases. The hydrogen gas can interact with double bonds in PUFAs you're cooking with, causing some trans fats to form.

"Partially Hydrogenated" means *some* of the double bonds on a PUFA have been hydrogenated. This is when you get trans fats.

"Fully Hydrogenated" means *all* of the double bonds on a PUFA have been hydrogenated creating a saturated fat.

Clearing Up the Omega Confusion
"Omega-3" and "Omega-6" are essential fats (you need them for good health), and refer to where a double bond is. They are always PUFAs. They need to be in balance, a 1:1 ratio is ideal. However, because our gov't has made corn and soy so ungodly cheap, Americans consume 10 to 20 times more omega-6 than 3. This is very bad! Too much omega-6 creates a ton of inflammation in the body. Inflammation wreck havoc, and is a major player in heart disease, asthma, joint degeneration and arthritis, and other common ailments.

Connection to Heart Disease
LDL is the "bad" cholesterol that has been correlated with heart disease. (Remember kids, correlation does not equal causation.) As mentioned before, LDL is not harmful. Oxidized LDL is harmful and winds up in your arteries. Your LDL is made-up of the fats that you eat. If you eat a lot of SFA, your LDL is made of SFA and doesn't oxidize. If you follow the govt's advice and eat PUFAs, than your LDL is made of PUFAs. This will result in a lower LDL, but it will oxidize 100 times more readily and wind up clogging your arteries.

Take-Home Message
This Rogue Dietitian recommends eating SFAs and MUFAs, and avoiding PUFAs like the plague. This means enjoying bacon fat, goose fat, coconut oil, chocolate, and olive oil with wild abandon, and going out of your way to avoid corn, soy, safflower and cottonseed oils. Omega-6 can be gotten with supplements -- evening primrose oil and flax seeds are great sources. Omega-3 can be had from pastured animal products, wild fatty fish, or supplements. Plant-based omega-3s are not great substitutes as they're not very bioavailable. So, walnut oil and flaxseed oil are fine to eat, but don't provide as much benefit as fish oil.

Olive Oil:
14% saturated (mostly palmitic acid)
73% monounsaturated (almost entirely oleic acid)
10% polyunsaturated

Corn Oil:
13% saturated (mostly palmitic acid)
27% monounsaturated (mostly oleic acid)
55% polyunsaturated (almost ENTIRELY omega-6 which is extremely inflammatory)

Soybean Oil:
16% saturated (mostly palmitic acid)
23% monounsaturated (mostly oleic acid)
58% polyunsaturated (almost ENTIRELY omega-6)

Safflower Oil (regular):
6% saturated (mostly palmitic acid)
14% monounsaturated (mostly oleic acid)
75% polyunsaturated

Safflower Oil ("refined" or "high oleic"):
6% saturated (mostly palmitic acid)
75% monounsaturaed (entirely oleic acid)
14% polyunsaturated

Coconut Oil:
87% saturated (mostly lauric acid)
6% monounsaturated (oleic acid)
2% polyunsaturated

Cocoa Butter:
60% saturated (palmitic and stearic acids)
33% monounsaturated (oleic acid)
3% polyunsaturated

Peanut Oil:
17% saturated (mostly palmitic acid)
46% monounsaturated (mostly oleic acid)
32% polyunsaturated
Note: contains 1.3% arachidic acid which converts to arachidonic acid in the body, the MAJOR inflammatory prostaglandin. This is not good.

i love your posts ilovebutter! right now i'm a biology undergraduate major thinking of switching from pre-med to attending a graduate program in nutrition and then becoming a dietician. i was wondering how much flack you get for going against the USDA food pyramid?

@intheflowers -- thanks! I actually started out wanting to go to med school, and decided to major in nutrition because it covers all the pre-med coursework (except physics), and gives me something I can do if I decided not to go to medical school.

I got my degree from a landgrant university, and it was all Food Pyramid, Food Pyramid, Food Pyramid. During the time, it was really tough and I wasn't a happy camper _at all_. In school I got some flack for my rogue views, mostly from my fellow students. Now that I'm done and working, it hasn't been so bad. Part of it is I pick my audience. I work at a natural health clinic where we are totally focused on whole foods diets, and usually paleolithic in philosophy. When I express an alternative viewpoint, I also try to educate about it, and people seem grateful for the knowledge rather than being treated like an idiot and fed stale rhetoric. And still, there are some that just roll their eyes. :)

Other dietitians will sometimes give me the evil eye, but I'm very well read in the research to support my viewpoints. When you show them the evidence, they usually come around.

Good luck! It really is a great field -- the possibilities are endless. Pretty much anything you're interested in you can figure out a way to do it. Food and nutrition touch every single part of our health and culture.

Salted butter on bread, unsalted for baking; light olive oil for frying and extra virgin on veg/in vinaigrettes. Why would anyone ever use margarine??

I like Earth Balance.
But I would bake (not common--I cook), I'd use butter.

Butter from local grass-fed cows not only tastes better but has some amazing nutritional qualities.

@ilovebutter-well said :)

As a registered dietitian, I am frequently perplexed by advice to steer clear of margarine products in favor of butter. This guidance is in direct conflict with the scientific evidence.

Ten scientific studies have directly evaluated the health benefits of soft spread margarine versus butter, and all have confirmed that margarine spreads are the healthier choice. One groundbreaking study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that making the simple switch from butter to soft margarine spreads lowered levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol by nine percent in children and eleven percent in adults <http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/284/21/2740>.

Not only do today’s soft spread margarines list “zero grams” of trans fat on the Nutrition Facts Panel, they are lower than ever before in calories, total fat and saturated fact. In fact, butter contains up to 40 more calories per serving than most soft spreads; switching to a margarine spread can result in significant calorie savings for daily butter users. Margarine is cholesterol free, unlike butter, and provides a dietary source of vitamin E and polyunsaturated fat. New research recently released from the Harvard School of Public Health shows that replacing saturated fat with polunsaturated fat (especially from vegetable oils) lowers risk of heart disease by about 20 percent <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100322211831.htm>.

Margarine spreads are made from natural vegetable oils, unlike butter, which is made from animal fat. The American Heart Association, the National Institutes of Health National Cholesterol Education Program, and the FDA all recommend soft/tub margarine with zero grams of trans fat over butter as the best nutritional choice. Consumer watch groups like the Centers for Science in the Public Interest and the Harvard School of Public Health Nutrition Source echo the recommendation to choose soft spread margarines as a healthier alternative to butter.

-The National Association of Margarine Manufacturers (NAMM)

W00t! I pissed off the margarine lobby!

Seriously though, I understand that NAMM has an interest to protect, and I understand that the recommendation to minimize SFA and increase PUFAs in the diet is the standard dietary advice from the AMA, ADA, AHA, gov't etc (organizations which, btw, receive millions of $$ of funding from pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations). I don't dispute that.

I do, however, dispute the healthiness and wisdom of this advice. You will never, ever convince me that consuming an industrially processed, highly oxidative, pro-inflammatory oil which is completely foreign to the human genome to consume is better for your health than a natural, minimally processed fat humans have been consuming for millenia.

PS -- perhaps you missed this landmark study published earlier this year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

"A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies (n = 347,747) showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD." []http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.27725v1

Yay, ilovebutter! Hurray for people who don't just accept what they were spoon-fed in school.

OK, so I just looked up the "groundbreaking" study published in JAMA that Namm, RD, LD referenced. IT WAS FUNDED BY NAMM!

Notice how she leaves out that little detail?

And, notice how she picks and chooses scientific studies to support her point of view, rather than actually considering the available published evidence along with our knowledege of chemistry, food science, and biochemistry?

Pathetic. How much are they paying you Namm, RD, LD? Must be a lot to make it worth it. If I had your job, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Maybe next you can go work for the tobacco lobby, and post blog comments all over the internets spinning cigarettes as a great, healthy way to lose and manage weight. Oh, and I hear nicotine is also helpful for ADD too. See? You can find something positive to say about every poison.

I’ve got to go with the registered dietitian on this issue.

Using new technologies, soft margarine manufacturers have met the challenge and eliminated or reduced trans fat in soft margarine products (also known as “buttery spreads”), making a good product even better. Plus, health organizations recommend that anyone over the age of two initiate a heart healthy diet that includes maintaining a healthy weight, eating a balanced diet, and keeping their saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol intakes low. I always try to consume a heart healthy diet because heart disease runs in my family and I also work with the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers so I know how important a healthy diet is!

An overall healthy diet includes consuming a wide range of foods in moderation. A heart healthy diet includes fruits and vegetables, grains, dairy products, meat and beans, and vegetable oils. A heart healthy diet also minimizes intake of foods like animal fats, such as butter.

Simply switching to soft margarine can greatly impact family health, as soft margarine products contain no cholesterol, little to no trans fats, and taste great!

Check out my blog for more info: http://www.iheartmargarine.com.

Simply switching to margarine can greatly impact family health, as margarine products contain highly oxidative polyunsaturated fats, some trans fats, and taste like crap.

I see you have gone around the internet posting THE SAME COMMENTS on various blogs praising butter. Emma, you're a total shill for Big Margarine. What's your next job going to be? Smoking for weight loss? Binge drinking to raise HDL? Vodka to help teething babies feel less pain? Encouraging pregnant women to smoke pot to combat morning sickness?

I've noticed people who eat margarine (as opposed to butter) are often fat

I recall studying the ingredients on both butter and margarine packages. The margarine had a fairly large paragraph of ingredients. Most I could barely pronounce. The butter contained 2 ingredients. 'cream and salt'. It's an easy choice for me. Butter is natural food humans have been eating since the dawn of time. Margarine is a human created product. I'm naturally suspicious of any kind of human created 'food' full of stuff I can't recognize or identify without being a chemist. Remember that monster molecule 'olean'? Also called 'Olestra'? What ever happened to that? Unanticipated negative side effects. That's what happened. You see my point. Butter is animal fat for sure. But we also cannot survive without it. The 19th century explorers Lewis and Clark found that out the hard way. The key is moderation. Small amounts of butter, other dairy products and meat relative to a high quantity of fruits and veggies is the key to a healthy diet. Of course a very active life style is essential. Being a chain smoking video game playing dorito chip munching couch potato will nullify any good diet.

ilovebutter - there's a very small chance you will see this but I am doing my senior thesis on making the switch back to butter and I would LOVE to talk to you. If you do see this, could you email enmarti1 at asu dot edu? Thank you so much!