Eat more butter.

[RoM]

Food for thought next time you reach for the country-crock...

http://www.munising.com/butter_margarine_facts.html

A little back-story:

Earlier today this commercial on the radio for a well known car dealership in my area came on and basicly ran down everything contained in the link as a means to get listeners attention and then proceeded on from there 'now that i have you attention blah blah blah, get a car, we finance Yo.'

I could've given a shit less about cars at that point concidering this was all news to me. And appalling at that. Now, mind you, once the kids were born i went on an organic kick and tossed the margarine for salted organic butter anyway but ... yeeesh, that's nasty.

This comes all but immediately after the wife, who until now will NOT eat vegetables (don't even get me started) finally watched 'Super-Size Me', got pale as a ghost, and swore off fast-food and made a pact with me to reduce the ammount of soft-drinks we consume because well ... most of the shit out there for you to eat is exactly that. Shit.

Anyhow just something interesting i ran across during my quasi-health kick that i found a bit eye-opening. I figure if more people took a second to learn about what they put in their bodies ahead of time there'd be less people looking around (as in my case) at 25 wondering why their health is failing and/or they're a giant fatass and can't drop the weight.

 

[Trippyhippy]

Interestingly enough, I already knew a bit about the history and differences between butter and margarine from these books I have called "Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader". It's just randome facts, trivia, quotes, history of ___, and other shit like that.

So I read the link you posted, and right off, I knew something was amiss because it said margarine was originally fed to turkeys and it killed em, when it was actually invented in france by some guy that was trying to claim a prize issued by Napoleon III that would be given to anyone that could come up with a replacement for the soldiers and lower class.

Then I started to wonder what else was on that site you linked to, and it's a tourist site for a place called Munsing Michigan. Seems like the article is out of place. So I looked around a bit more and found this article:
http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/butter.asp

Here is what wiki says about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine

You sir, to a certain extent, have been duped. But for gods sake, if it makes the woman eat vegetables, just let her think that.

On a personal note... Landcrabs are HUGE! Question everything and never trust a fucking Hippie.

 

[RoM]

Fair enough but word for word it was what was contained in the commercial. Which, actually, was enough to get my attention for the commercial which says something in itself.

In looking up the link to the exact quotes i found the bit about the actual origin but that wasen't so much the point. There's more than enough crap out there that barely passes as food for one reason or another that it's simply more convinient to cram down your throat, as i've been reflecting on it lately i figured i'd share.

Also note that the only reason margarine can be touted as better than butter health-wise is for it's lack of neccessary dietary cholesteral (subjective) and the recent availability of trans-fat free margarine which is pumped full of god knows what.

On landcrabs: I believe the proper technique for hunting them involved a wire hanger, i'd have to check with andreva.

P.S. for trip and mebbe even rappa

Since your local and might happen to hear it it's one of those 'ole gray haired guy' commercials, hell if i remember the name of the place. It's someplace out in oak ridge or something.

 

[Darkdante]

Go one better and skip both. I only use extra-virgin olive oil.

 

[Uzor]

um, wow. That thing is stupid. While yes, it is good to avoid butter as a whole, but the person that wrote that is seriously a retard.

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings.

DO YOU KNOW...the difference between margarine and butter?
Read on to the end...gets very interesting!


Both have the same amount of calories. Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams. 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 a few only because they are added! 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.


And now, for 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) and increases the risk of cancers up to five fold. Lowers quality of breast milk. Decreases immune response. Decreases insulin response. And here's the most disturbing fact.... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

So far its true, but honestly, if you didn't know that yet... wtf?!

This however:

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC!!!

This fact alone was enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance). You can try this yourself:
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 weenie microorganisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic.

Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

That's just retarded. Just because something is one molecule away from being something else, in no way makes it similar.1 molecule, on a molecular level, is huge. Hell, Salmiac, which is a common compound is in no way deadly acidic, despite containing Ammonium and hydrochloric acid, which, as you might know, is very acidic. As a matter of fact, Salmiac is used in liquorice candy to strengthen the taste. Seriously, don't you learn this shit in chemistry?

NH3 + HCl → NH4Cl = "Salmiac", aka. ammonium chlorid. A common ingredient for liquorice candy. It actually reacts so easily, that you can put 2 buckets in a room, and mix together in a kind of white smoke. This can actually be used as a way of torture, as inhaling it will cause damage to your throat and lungs. Ammonium chloride can be easily made by having a glass tube, and putting NH3 in one end and in HCl the other. If the tube is water filled, you'll see a white gas forming in the middle. Once the reaction is over, you can eat the white powder substance created.

The fact that flies don't go near butter is because butter is 1) very fat 2) don't really "rot", due to things not usually eating fat. Especially not plants (fungus in this case) and insects, since it, as they wrote earlier, holds close to none nuitricient value. It has nothing to do with "being 1 molecule away from plastic".

Seriously, who the fuck wrote that? its either some horrible joke, or the most stupid argument I've ever heard.

And seriously, if you honestly didn't know butter was bad for you before reading that, America must have some very bad health information.

 

[Stouter]

once the kids were born i went on an organic kick and tossed the margarine for salted organic butter

I won't touch organic milk after a friend that works in a dairy lab showed me some standard test results. They were of bacteria content of Raw Milk vs Raw Organic Milk. The regular milk was figuring in the teens, the organic was in the thousands. This is before pastuerization, but damn that's nasty.

 

[Uzor]

I won't touch organic milk after a friend that works in a dairy lab showed me some standard test results. They were of bacteria content of Raw Milk vs Raw Organic Milk. The regular milk was figuring in the teens, the organic was in the thousands. This is before pastuerization, but damn that's nasty.

Yes, before. After its much better. Besides, not all bacteria are bad bacteria. Some bacterias make you more healthy, and also helps against stomache ache and diseases. There's over a thousand different healthy bacterias, but I'll be damned if I remember any of their names.

 

[Stouter]

Yeah some are healthy, but most of the ones found in milk are E Coli. Pastuerization can kill most of it, but 95% of pastuerization is HTST (High Temperature Short Time) which is heating the milk to around 170F (77C) for less than 30 seconds.

 

[Cecilee]

Overall, trans-fat free margarine is probably healthier than the butter. Synthesizing all that has been said in the thread so far, the big advantage to margarine is its low cholesterol. The big downside is its trans-fat content, which your body truly has no good enzyme to even deal with. The enzymes start to chew the fatty acid down like normal, but they get to this kink in the chain that isn't even found in nature. They naturally go WTF? It basically has to call in an oxidizing agent to deal with the mess, and those oxidizers are indiscriminate as to what they destroy. Oh there's a heart there? Mreh. Oxidize.

But nowadays margarine has lower and lower trans-fat content. It also tastes like butt, so in the end it's probably always going to be a draw, and the real answer is diet and exercise.

 

[Trippyhippy]

So far its true, but honestly, if you didn't know that yet... wtf?!

Actually, no it isn't. You missed the part about the turkeys. Butter was invented by a french dude to claim a prize offered by Napolean III for a cheap replacement for butter for the lower class and soldiers. Instead of vegtable oil, his creation was made from beef fat. He still won.

 

[Uzor]

Actually, no it isn't. You missed the part about the turkeys. Butter was invented by a french dude to claim a prize offered by Napolean III for a cheap replacement for butter for the lower class and soldiers. Instead of vegtable oil, his creation was made from beef fat. He still won.

When I said "So far its true", I didn't really mean the turkey part. I honestly don't know, nor care, who created margarine. I ment more the whole "butter is bad for you" part.

Overall, trans-fat free margarine is probably healthier than the butter. Synthesizing all that has been said in the thread so far, the big advantage to margarine is its low cholesterol. The big downside is its trans-fat content, which your body truly has no good enzyme to even deal with. The enzymes start to chew the fatty acid down like normal, but they get to this kink in the chain that isn't even found in nature. They naturally go WTF? It basically has to call in an oxidizing agent to deal with the mess, and those oxidizers are indiscriminate as to what they destroy. Oh there's a heart there? Mreh. Oxidize.

But nowadays margarine has lower and lower trans-fat content. It also tastes like butt, so in the end it's probably always going to be a draw, and the real answer is diet and exercise.

Recent studies have shown that maybe butter and margarine really isn't as bad as previous studies have shown, though, so the person that wrote that article is still stupid he's several years behind in his knowledge. While yes, large amounts of butter and margarine isn't good for you, but then again, what is? Large amounts of oxygen can kill you, since oxygen is one of the most toxic gases. Large amounts of water will kill you too. There's actually something called water poisoning.

So RoM, there's no need to completely avoid butter and margarine. But like everything else, it should be taken in moderation. Personally, I'd be more worried about the amount of sugar and salt you eat on a daily basis.

 

[RoM]

Well, i mean, i knew all that.

Actually there's no reason to avoid either at all, really. The key is moderation and actually looking at the ingredients/nutrition panel. And no, regardless of the trans-fat free margarines there really is no health (or nutritional for that matter) benefit from margarine. Butter, on the other hand, contains neccessary dietary cholesterol.

But i digress:

Portion control and nutritional information ftw.

On the note of organics i will say this; i didn't go abso-freaking-lutely nuts and switch over to total organics. I prefer my vegetables and my butter organic, that's about it. Seeing as how most things in the way of margarine are proccessed and hydrogenated (which is mostly bad for you, btw) all to hell. I also took a step back from high fructose corn syrup in addition to avoid hydrogenated foods. Really, it just pays to pay attention these days.

Alot of people eat god knows what from god knows where without a second thought simply because (and i hear this a bit here and there) 'they wouldn't put it out there if it was *that* bad', which is a crock of shit. It's not particularly about 'butter v margarine' so much as i'd been having a bit of a recent epiphany about alot of the random crap i and people i know consume and that commercial sparked my interest to yack about it with the usual suspects.

Like .. i could go on for hours about the pitfalls of say ... mountain dew. But there's really no sensationalist information to link to on that subject as opposed to the butter thing. Unfortunately almost everything you hear about mountain dew is true. (i could go on for days about that crap... but i won't because i know more than a few addicts personally as well as assume we have quite a few who frequent the site <.< )

On the note of who wrote the "facts" i linked to my money's on the american dairy council since most margarine these days is primarily nothing but preservatives and vegetable oil. As well as the dairy council has been tearing it's hair out about margarine since it's inception on the american food market because it detracts from profits.

 

[Valandil]

Partially hydrogenated oil will kill you almost as fast as high fructose corn syrup.

 

[Fellina]

I prefer butter just because I prefer the taste, but I've used margarine when I was broke. Chocolate chip cookies made with margarine instead of butter suck ass.

I personally prefer the unsalted butter to salted, because unsalted generally is fresher. The salt acts as a butter preservative, so stores keep salted butter stocked longer than unsalted. Sure it doesn't taste as good on bread, but I rarely eat buttered bread anyway- I'm an extra virgin olive oil type of gal.

For me, the whole organic vs. inorganic thing comes down to two factors: taste, and price. Most organic products in the store don't have enough taste difference to qualify the massive price difference, IMO. Organic milk is ridiculous, I can barely afford to put store-brand milk on the table as is. (I spend more on milk each week than I do on gas for my car, swear to god). Organic produce isn't much better, I decided long ago that if I wanted organic veggies I was just going to grow the damn things myself (and I do). Meats, hah. Recently our grocery store stopped carrying the frozen wild-caught salmon (which is pretty much organic, just wasn't labeled as such), and replaced it with organic salmon. The price tripled. -_-

 

[K. Ishitar]

But what about "I can't believe it's not butter!" brand?

it seems to have nothing in it that these studies show when I'm sure that this brand was studied since it's popular...

just 10 calories for each spray unless it's cooked into it..