I was doing my grocery shopping earlier this week and noticed something that bothered me a great bit. Usually I am in a hurry and I just grab my regular foods that my family eats. But this time I was moving a bit more slowly. Once I got my produce I moved toward the dairy aisle to get my butter. I stopped and looked around…. The butter was on the outer edge of the fridge and on 3 very narrow shelves. The margarine was right next to the butter but with 4-5 times more product! I was flabbergasted.
Sure margarine is cheaper and spreads easily on flimsy white bread but with all the bad publicity on how bad Trans Fats are for you, you would think that margarine sales would be down.
That obviously is not the case if the shelves are jam packed with this heart attack, stroke and cancer causing product.
I recently saw this advertisement in the April 2009 Prevention Magazine for margarine.
This ad is comparing different levels of Trans Fats in their competitors products! Trans Fats have now become a marketing tactic.
The truth is that there is no safe level of these kinds of fats!
Margarines are marketed as a healthier alternative than butter. But butter is a real food and margarines are an industrial processed food.
The whole process of hydrogenating oils is actually very disgusting. They use cheap polyunsaturated oils such as cottonseed (which is not a food! And is heavily sprayed with pesticide), soy, corn and canola. These oils are very unstable and go rancid when exposed to heat. The oils then go through a steam cleaning process, then nickel oxide is added to them, after that the oils are put through a reactor and then hydrogen is added. This is the process that turns the oil form liquid to solid. However it does not come out smooth and creamy. Lumps occur and the oil has turned smelly and grey in colour. To get rid of the lumps a soap-like emulsifier and starch are added. To get rid of the smell the oil is steam cleaned again! To get rid of the grey colour the oil has to be bleached and then a natural yellow colour is added. Artificial vitamins and flavours are added to make this product look and taste like butter.
Blah! How gross.
Weston A. Price Foundation has the full story on Trans Fats.
So my question to you…
Why do you think margarine is still so popular?
