War Between butter and Margarine

There's a war being waged between margarine and butter but you might be shocked when you hear which one is winning the fight.

It's hard for a lot of people to even consider eating butter. The saturated fat dogma associated with it is something that's hard to let go. On the other hand, we're also finding margarine isn't the great heart protector we've all been promised.

For example, here's a big surprise. A lot of margarines that are labeled "no" or "zero" trans fats aren't really telling the truth.

Maybe you didn't know this, but the FDA allows foods that contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving to list them as 0 (zero) on the label. So, a lot of margarines still contain 0.49 grams or less of trans fats per tablespoon. But they've taken advantage of this tricky little caveat to claim there are none. What does this mean for you?

If you use 5 or 6 tablespoons of margarine a day, you could be eating almost two and a half or three grams of them. I know some people who use that much just to flavor a potato!

Make no mistake about it. Eliminating trans fats is even more important than reducing the amount of saturated fat in your diet. These fats are deadly. They create high levels of inflammation, increase bad LDL levels and cause healthy HDL to drop. They're also associated with a harmful increase in small, dense LDL particles that can slip through the lining of your blood vessels and cause plaque to build up.

And what about all those supposedly heart healthy omega-6 fatty acids?

Once again, our fear of the saturated fat in butter led us astray. Part of the concept behind the push for margarine was to replace saturated fats with healthier omega-6 vegetable fats.This sounds like a great idea on the surface. Our bodies need omega-6s. But they come with a tricky little problem.

In fact, over the years we've learned eating too many omega-6 fatty acids promotes inflammation. This, of course, is an underlying cause of heart disease. So it's no surprise that we're now discovering people who eat the most omega-6 fatty acids have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and death.

Unfortunately, these days we're eating a lot more omega-6 fatty acids than our bodies need. And it's really showing up in our health. You'll know your margarine is high in omega-6 if it contains vegetable, safflower, sunflower, corn, cottonseed sesame or soybean oils. So, is butter better?

To be cont'd.

Have a great day.