Butter or margarine, which one is the healthier option for you?

For many years, it has been assumed that margarine was better for you, because of less saturated fats. However, trans-fats have been discovered to be dangerous, so much so that there is a ban on them being used in restaurants in certain parts of the country, like New York City.

There have been many recent debates about which is the better of the two in terms of overall health, and especially when someone is trying to lose weight. Both of them have advantages, and disadvantages. In this article, we will compare them so you can get the facts and decide for yourself which one is the best choice for you.

Mankind has been making butter in one form or another for thousands of years. It was originally made from the milk of water buffalo or camels. Today it’s made from cow’s milk, but the process is exactly the same as it has been for over six thousand years. The full fat milk is churned until it forms a solid. Salt is usually added as a preservative.

One of the reasons why some people say to stay away from butter is that it contains saturated fat. Saturated fat raises the bad form of cholesterol, known as LDL cholesterol, (think L for lousy, as compared with HDL (H for healthy). Saturated fat also raises the total blood cholesterol levels.

What most people don’t understand, however, is that the cholesterol in the food you eat has little to no effect on the blood cholesterol levels of most people, since the body produces cholesterol naturally itself. In addition, there are foods that naturally lower cholesterol in the same why that it is thought meat and eggs and so on can increase it.

As a way to combat the problems believed to be caused by butter, margarine was created toward the second half of the last century. However, margarine didn’t live up to all the claims made about it either. Margarine was laden with man-made trans fats, which are created during hydrogenation, the process of taking liquid vegetable oil and making it into a solid which is then spreadable like butter, or used for cooking or frying.