Do you know the important differences between butter and margarine? Many people interchange between consuming butter and margarine because they are similar in functions, as a bread spread or to use in baking or cooking. People who may prefer to consume margarine normally do so because it is cheaper in price compared to butter.
But you should learn the health benefits of butter and margarine before you think about saving money and choose something that will threaten your health. Here are some of the differences.
- Both butter nad margarine have the same amount of calories.
- Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams in margarine.
- Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
- Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
- Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has less.
- Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
- Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.
Margarine is known to be less healthy than butter. Read on to find out the cons of consuming margarine.
- Very high in trans-fatty acids.
- Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
- Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol).
- Increases the risk of cancer up to five fold.
- Lowers the quality of breast milk.
- Decreases immune response.
- Decreases insulin response.
Also, this is an interesting finding: Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC!
Now if you are not convinced of the unhealthiness of margarine, try this little experoment.
Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:
- No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
- It does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny micro organisms will not find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
From what I know, if the margarine has not added artificial nutrition, it has 0 nutrition value.
That’s true, there’s actually really very little nutritional benefits in margarine sold in the market.