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Question: I am still confused over the age-old controversy ?butter vs. margarine?. Which is better for me to eat?

Answer: I can certainly understand your frustration, especially when you are trying your best to follow a heart-healthy diet. Let?s look at why butter and margarine both get a bad rap.

First let?s look at butter. The problem with butter is that it contains two cholesterol-raising ingredients: dietary cholesterol and saturated fat. Dietary cholesterol is found only in animal products so you won?t find any cholesterol in a plant-based food or food product (such as margarine). Some of us are more affected by cholesterol in the diet than others, meaning some people can consume a diet high in cholesterol without blood cholesterol levels being affected; but others need only eat a little dietary cholesterol and their cholesterol levels soar. Overall, it is recommended that healthy persons consume no more than 200 milligrams cholesterol each day. Butter has 33 milligrams of cholesterol in one tablespoon alone!

Cholesterol aside, butter?s biggest trouble is its saturated fat content. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature and are found largely in red meat, high-fat dairy products (like butter) as well as coconut and palm oils. When eaten in excess, saturated fats increase the ?bad? cholesterol (LDL) as well as the ?good? cholesterol (HDL). Despite the fact that saturated fats raise good cholesterol, they don?t raise it enough for us to warrant you eating it. Saturated fat intakes are associated with increases in heart-disease risk. A healthy range of saturated fat is 10-15 grams each day. Just one tablespoon of butter contains over 7 grams of saturated fat!

Margarine is by no means void of artery clogging fat. The controversy with margarine lies with its level of trans fat, largely a man-made fat. Trans fats are formed when hydrogen is added to vegetable oils, making the oil more solid and less likely to spoil. This process is called hydrogenation or partial hydrogenation and allows stick margarine to be firm at room temperature. Trans fats have been shown to increase the ?bad? cholesterol (LDL) similarly to saturated fats, and they tend to lower the ?healthy? (HDL) cholesterol when eaten in large amounts. What?s more ? trans fats may make our blood platelets stickier. While no standard intakes of trans fat have been set, one tablespoon of stick margarine packs a whopping 3 grams of trans fat and 2 grams saturated fat.

But a little margarine ?know-how? will help you reduce the amount of trans fat you eat. The more solid a margarine is at room temperature, the more trans fat it contains. For example, stick margarine contains the most trans fat, 3 grams in one tablespoon. Switch to tub or liquid margarine and you?ve cut that by almost 2/3, from 1-2 grams trans fat. And the good news is margarine manufacturers are now cutting their trans fat levels even further, to less than 0.5 grams per serving! This low level is allowed to carry the claim ?trans fat free or zero-trans fat?. How do they do it? They switched their first ingredient from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil to water or liquid vegetable oil.

Now you have some choices and your answer: margarine (the trans-free tub or liquid kinds) is still recommended over butter. For those of you who choose to have a ?little? butter once in a while (for example, 1 teaspoon a couple times a month) you shouldn?t have to worry, but it?s better to be safe than sorry. On a regular basis, aim for the growing number of tub and liquid trans-free margarines available on the market today and rest-assured that you are eating in a more heart-healthy manner. If you have high cholesterol, your doctor may even recommend two trans-free cholesterol-lowering margarines called Take Control? and Benecol?. They taste similar to other tub margarines.

For more information on a heart-healthy diet plan, please contact the Preventive Cardiology and Rehabilitation Program at 216.444-9353 (or toll-free at 800/223-2273, extension 49353) and we can schedule a nutrition consultation.

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http://www.clevelandclinic.org/heartcenter/pub/guide/prevention/askdietician/margarine.htm

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# Use butter instead of margarine or shortening in cooking. Butter has some problems, too, such as residual hormones and pesticides, but it is a whole food. Whole foods have fat-mobilising nutrients to take care of their own fats if eaten in moderation. If you want to use butter, try to get organically-produced butter.

# An even better alternative is the organic ghee, or clarified butter, mentioned earlier. Ghee is the cooking fat most highly regarded by Indian and French chefs. It has a good aroma and will not burn, smoke or develop toxic compounds when heated.

# Organic, unrefined coconut butter is an alternative to regular butter in your diet. Omega Nutrition has this product. However, most other coconut oil products are hydrogenated. Coconut oil has been subjected to a smear campaign by commercial vegetable oil producers, but the research studies cited have used hydrogenated coconut oil, which may have skewed the results.


# Use olive oil or a 50:50 mixture of ghee and olive oil. Do not fry or saut? with "polyunsaturated" light oils such as safflower, sunflower or corn oils. They oxidise readily into damaging free-radicals at high temperatures. Free radicals are highly reactive molecules that can tear into your cells and start nasty chain reactions that can leave behind extensive damage, including alteration of your genetic code (DNA) and formation of cancer cells. Free radicals are widely considered to play a major role in degenerative disease. While there are virtually no EFAs in olive oil, it is rich in "mono-unsaturated" fatty acids and is not so easily oxidised. Use an "extra virgin, cold-pressed, first pressing" olive oil, preferably with a greenish colour and some sediment on the bottom, which usually indicates less processing. Most co-ops carry it.


# Buy your oil in sealed bottles and avoid the bulk oils in co-ops, since they are usually rancid (free radicals again). An oil that tastes bitter when you place a drop on your tongue is rancid and should not be consumed.

KingOftheThing said:

guess im the last to find this out

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