Butter or margarine?

Years ago, when everyone first started worrying about saturated fat and cholesterol, lots of people began eating margarine as a "healthy alternative" to butter. Nutrition experts said that since margarine was made with vegetable oils, it was healthier than butter, which contained animal fat.

I wasn't convinced because I learned about trans fat in graduate school. Very simply, trans fat was a fatty acid molecule that was altered by changing the double bonds between the carbons and adding hydrogen. Thus the term "hydrogenated." In my biochemistry textbook, the resulting fatty acid looked twisted and unnatural.

So even though the experts said to eat margarine, I told everyone in my family to keep eating butter. "Butter is natural," I told them, "just the way God and the cow made it." Well, okay, to get butter you have to churn the cream, but you get the idea. So my family continued to enjoy sweet, creamy butter - in moderation, of course.

Now here we are today, with everyone panicking about trans fat. And we SHOULD panic about it. It is nasty stuff! Thankfully, many food manufacturers are decreasing the amounts of hydrogenated oils in their products. Many products say "0 grams trans fat" on the label. Many of these products are actually trans fat free. However, labeling laws allow for a teeny bit of trans fat to be present even when it says zero grams. So be a savvy shopper and read the ingredients label. (That's the label somewhere on the side of the box that you need a magnifying glass to read.) If the product contains hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils, there is still a small amount of trans fat in the food.

Bottom line? In my opinion, butter is a good alternative to margarine when used in moderation. There are other good choices, too, like some of the newer spreads made with olive oil. When in doubt, I always go with the food that is closest to the way God made it. Blessings!