Butter over Margarine

There was a time when fat was the enemy and during that time butter got a bad rap. Butter was and still is by too many people believed to be a major cause of high cholesterol. We know that butter has significant amounts of saturated fats and that saturated fats raise our cholesterol (however that is only half the picture...)

And so margarine was made. Margarine has no saturated fats and it is made of vegetable oil so of course that's got to be better for our cholesterol regulation right. Well at least for a while we thought so. Margarine, although made from vegetable oils, is highly processed; so much that trans fats are formed through the hardening of these vegetable oils. Trans fats are what make our margarines not so innocent.

Saturated fats which are found in butter increase LDL (the bad cholesterol that clog our arteries) while also increasing HDL (the good cholesterol that wipe away the bad). On the other side, we have trans fats in margarine which increase the bad LDL and decrease the good HDL. So although the overall choesterol is increased more from butter consumption compared to margarine, the increased good cholesterol balances out the over all cholesterol and margarine's cholesterol imbalancing effect is left pleading guilty.

So while being mindful of how much fat you are consuming in your diet, choose butter over margarine, now that you have heard the other side of the story.