There’s a very important reason why I eat butter instead of margarine: butter is the real thing! Margarine? Not so much. Learn the difference between butter and margarine and find out why you should always choose the real deal instead.
The Reason Why I Eat Butter Instead Of Margarine
When you are in the dairy aisle in the supermarket, how often do you see a butter product being marketed as healthy? Almost never. It’s always the margarine alternative that boasts of health benefits, but in reality, it’s the other way around. Real authentic butter is the one that’s better for your health. Why? Read on to find out.
Butter is the real thing.
My favorite butter is Kerrygold and contains only two natural ingredients: cream and salt. I just love the taste and texture of this butter. I also love the fact that is made from grass-fed cows.
However, even if you choose a store brand butter, the ingredient list is just as short. Cream. Salt. Period. Unless, of course, you opt for unsalted, in which case you’re looking at a single ingredient!
Margarine is a totally different story. The substance that creates margarine is nothing more than a scientific process- an experiment really- which created something that has proven to be incredibly bad for our bodies: trans fats. Just look at the laundry list of ingredients.
Margarine was created as a cheaper alternative to butter back in the late 1800s, when the French emperor Napoleon challenged the people to make a butter-like product for the military and lower-class citizens. It started being mass produced in 1903 when it was found that adding hydrogen to vegetable oil turns it into a more solid, spreadable product. Margarine was much cheaper to produce than butter and so it became very popular.
Good vs Bad Fats
Fatty acids like omega 3 and 6 are really important for our brain function. Vitamins A, D and E and all fat-soluble vitamins that help transport fat around the body. So natural fats are good. Real butter contains all of them!
Trans fats act differently, their molecular structure is different, and so they provide no help to the body in the way natural fats do. In recent years, studies have shown that trans fats can have really bad effects on our health. One study (Dalainas & Ioannou, 2008) showed a 23% increase in coronary artery disease in just a 2% increase in energy taken from trans fats. Another one in 2012 also found that trans fats increase your risk of heart disease. Yet another discovered that even the negligible amount in some foods can increase your dementia risk. That last one came after the artificial trans fat ban that took place last year. Yep, even though it’s officially been banned (at least when artificially created), trans fats still find their way into foods and still cause health problems.
Why butter is good for you.
Butter is full of immune-boosting vitamins. It contains Lauric Acid (also found in breast milk and coconut oil). Real butter is a great source of healthy cholesterol, fatty acids, antioxidants, and also helps with nutrient absorption.
Butter Contains a Lot of Healthy Saturated Fats. The “war” against saturated fat was based on bad science. It was never really proven that it caused any harm. In fact, recent studies are suggesting more and more that there is no association at all between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease. The fat found in simple carbohydrates like bread and sugar is actually (according to recent research) what is to blame for heart disease.
What if your doctor still recommends margarine instead of butter?
This is where things get tricky, because many doctors still recommend margarine over butter for patients with heart disease. Here’s the thing, though. When they make that recommendation, they’re thinking about newer margarine products that are made without trans fat, mostly by swapping the hydrogenated oil to water or regular liquid vegetable oil. Sure, that’s better than the earlier versions, but it’s still the equivalent of a science project versus real, natural food.
Plus, it doesn’t taste nearly as rich and the newer studies are showing no association with heart disease. So, think that you just need a smear of butter to flavor your homemade pancakes, so you don’t really need to really pile on the margarine. While I’d never recommend ignoring your doctor’s recommendation, it’s worth asking him if margarine is still the best option in that case, or if it would perhaps be smarter to just use a little butter instead.
Margarine will never be as natural as butter
No matter how healthy margarine manufacturers try to make their product, they’ll never come close to matching the sheer naturalness and wholesomeness of good, real butter. In fact, the harder they try, the longer their ingredients list becomes! Unless your doctor absolutely forbids you from eating butter, the real deal is always the best choice. If you truly are unable to eat it, you’re better off finding a different way to flavor your food than turning to a processed product like margarine.
This is the reason why I eat butter instead of margarine. Butter is a completely natural food essential to your health. Make sure you buy an organic butter from grass-fed cows.
Good natural fats are good for you. Having higher levels of cholesterol is also no longer thought to be as bad for you, and slightly higher levels of cholesterol in women have been actually linked to a longer life.
So, the next time you think you are doing your body good by choosing a low fat butter alternative, think again and go for the real thing instead.
I hope you enjoyed reading The Reason Why I Eat Butter Instead Of Margarine. If you are interested in reading more about my blog, please take a look at my latest articles. I am a mom blogger who loves to share creative and healthy fun food ideas and tips for living a healthy lifestyle.
I also believe kids deserve to eat real food. If you are interested, please check out my recipes for easy to make, healthy, and homemade family meals. I am not a chef or have many years of experience cooking. So most of my recipes are very easy to prepare. I believe in cooking with fresh ingredients and try to avoid cans and boxes as much as possible.
Last update on 2022-11-19 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Samantha says
Great blog post Ursula! It’s wonderful to see another passionate mom talking about the benefits of real food vs something that is man made.
Creative And Healthy Fun Food says
Thank you for your comment Samantha.
carolyn says
I use margarine because I am allergic to milk I am 79 years old and margarine hasn’t killed yet It didn’t kill my kids or any of my family hmmmmmm go figure that
Diann Merritt Morales says
You have a valid reason for using margarine, so do what works for you. For those that do not, real butter is probably better. I have an allergy or sensitivity to nuts, so, even though they’re healthy for most people, I don’t eat them. I wish there was a substitute that tasted similar.
Michael Hiltz says
I believe 100% in what you are saying. I use butter and will continue to do so.
Michael Hiltz
michaelhiltz1@gmail.com
SHERRI RUDOLPH says
I read an article about 15 yes.ago that butter is by far way better than margarine. Ever since then I have used butter only.
Nicole says
My husband has a dairy allergy, so this just seemed kind of a heartless piece for those who can’t do the natural thing.
HILDA says
SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP,, NOBODY FORCED YOU TO READ THE ARTICLE AND THE WORLD DOESNT OWE YOU ANYTHING SO STOP TRYING TO GET ATTENTION ON THE LINE BY MAKING STUPID COMMENTS!!!
Dan says
Thanks for your kind response to those of us who think like Hilda.
Kat says
I’m 73 y/o & have a dairy allergy too. For years I had to choose between enjoying all the wonderful forms of dairy OR suffering the severe gastrointestinal results if I indulged. However, about 40 yrs ago I stumbled across a line of products (“Lactaid”) that changed all that & from then on, lactose & I have gotten along just fine.
These days there’s alot more alternatives (that are also alot less costly than 30-40 years ago!) to help anyone with lactose intolerance. Not only are there lactose free foods but there are pills that allow one to eat “regular” dairy products. They can make a world of difference in improving a person’s diet.
I’d definitely recommend atleast trying those lactose free & lactose tolerance products. I’m absolutely certain that would certainly be more pro-active & productive than whining about how heartless & unfair this informative article was to everyone who is lactose intolerant!
BellaBeachFlower says
Good for you.
My grandma is 97 this year and puts butter on everything, her whole life. Huge amounts. She told us to always use butter and never that cheap imitation crap.
Growing up she’d always put more butter on my toast saying I didn’t have enough. Bless her heart. I love my grandma.
I eat butter everyday, I’m 5’ 1” and weight 95 lbs. My grandma is incredibly small too.
Paula says
I absolutely LOVE that both you and Samantha are promoting real foods, Ursula! I’ve been doing this for may years. I grew up on a very large farm so that’s how I was raised. Our 4 children were raised the same way. Margarine,I’ve heard, but have no definitive proof,is one molecule away from being plastic.
Creative And Healthy Fun Food says
Thank you Paula ❤️
Michael says
One molecule away from plastic… the rallying cry of the scientifically illiterate
Creative Healthy Family says
Yes!
Fernando Domeniconi says
Just to clarify, water is one molecule away from being sulfuric acid, so this “information” doesn’t apply to anything, including margarine (and I am not promoting the use of margarine, just trying to debunk this statement as I see it every time I read an article about butter vs. margarine)
Jessie R. Smith says
Yep, also hydrogen peroxide. Water is H20 and Hydrogen Peroxide is H202. Both are clear and odorless.
Sal says
Enjoyed reading and wholeheartedly agree. Am on keto diet at the moment (the only one that’s ever really worked for me, so my butter consumption has quadrupled) I’ve always preferred butter anyway, and I’m losing weight, so win win
Creative & Healthy Family says
That’s great! I love butter!
Wallace Brasch says
I love butter too I used to churn cream on the farm and the buttermilk was better than the store bought stuff it’s nice to know what your eating and were it comes from.
Creative Healthy Family says
Agree!
Jessie R. Smith says
Thanks for not repeating the old urban myth that margarine was invented to fatten turkeys. I see that circulating on FB once or twice a year. My wife and I do used butter for most things, but Brummel & Brown yogurt based spread also.
Creative Healthy Family says
Thanks for your comment 🙂
M. Rib says
Margarine was actually invented by request from Napoleon who wanted a butter substitute that would not go bad on the battlefield.
Whisperingsage says
I’m surprised to see you didn’t include vitamin k2 on the list. The reason for choosing grassfed is because Dr Weston Price discovered factor X which years later was named vitamin k2. It was only found in live green fed animals and caused butterfat and animal body fat and milk to turn yellow. Humans are not efficient in this process. So we can’t turn our vitamin k1 from greens to vitamin k2 in our livers like animals can. It also turns egg yolks orange. I have seen in my chicken and rabbit carcasses it turns their body fat neon yellow. Some chickens it turns their skin yellow. ( there are two genetic lines of chickens, some stay white and some absorb the k2 in their skin and turn it yellow).
It turns my goats milk light yellow. It turns our cow milk ( when we had a cow) very very yellow. So wonder about that jet white milk in the store. It’s totally different and vitamin deficient.
K2 is also a fat soluble vitamin.
I almost forgot to tell what it does. It forms teeth and bone as children and rebuilds them in adults. It removes calcium from improper places like blood vessels and redirects it to teeth and bones. It reverses osteoporosis in adults but the studies say the minimum dose is 45 mg not mcg. But commercially, the supplement makers have stuck with 45 mcg which is not going to do the job.
Creative Healthy Family says
Thank you so much for the information. I will for sure research about vitamin k2 and update the post soon.
Satina Bradley says
So glad to see your informational reference to Weston A. Price. I only wish there were more people who understand his concepts in health eating. It has been such a positive and healthy change in my health journey!
JOHN DONAHUE says
Great article and I’m always searching for and researching for healthy foods but Napolean lived in the late 1700s to the early 1800s and I seriously doubt your claim about him asking people to comes up with a butter substitute. that being said, again thank you for the article and the information.
Rob says
This article is riddled with logical fallacies and is damaging to the scientific community. The idea that natural=better/healthier and chemicals=bad is untrue. Please consider approaching this topic using the scientific method, i.e. without bias and see where you arrive. I would be genuinely interested in discussing this with you to show you how this is damaging to science and society as a whole.
John Riley says
mate why dont you talk to some of your older citizens that were around when all the lies were being told between butter and margarine, I was bought up on butter same as my folks and there folks, and if you have a look back over the generations butter was far better for you than Margarine hands down, then they started advertising campaigns spruking the befits of margarine,, but when you looked a bit deeper, you found the labs doing the testing were getting huge grants for there work, so any company or companies that have to do that, just arnt to be trusted, its like looking at a picture of a burger and expecting to get that when you open the packet
Ann Taylor says
I let some margarine go out of date in my fridge, looked at it and it was not mouldy, just the same as when I bought it. So, I left it there, as an experiment to see how long it would be before mould appear on it. well, 18 months later itwas still the same in appearance, smell etc. Ii thought that was long enough for my experiment so threw it in the bin. I was amazed that it hadn’t been the same as wnen I had bought it 18 months previously. Since that day I have not bought any margarine or spreads.
Creative Healthy Family says
Wow! Thanks for sharing the story.
Het says
I don’t eat butter because to make this ‘natural product’ a baby is removed from its mother the day it is born and if male treated appallingly like a waste product eventually to be murdered.
Bovine breast milk is intended for bovine babies 😢
Phil Harker says
That is not always true I grew up on a farm and my Brother and I milked two cows every morning by hand we had an old butter chain that has been in our family for over eight years and is still in use today the calves will always given the milk first there was plenty for the babies to feed and for us humans as well we never had to lock our cows into a dairy with a headlock they still free and were there every morning waiting to be milked
Steven Atlas says
So you don’t like margarine because it’s shelf-stable? That is a strange reason to criticize something. Things that contain a certain amount of vinegar also tend to be stable — to you therefore boycott vinegar?
Creative Healthy Family says
I explain in detail why I prefer butter in the post.
Jackie Bennett says
I quit eating margarine the day I moved out of my folks house. Margarine is also a very nasty grey color when it’s being made. If I use salt I use kosher salt when cooking and Spike. I’ve never had cholesterol problems like my folks and sister and brother they just thought I was a health food freak!!
Dotty says
It also goes bad real fast. Butter doesn’t! 🙂
Clare Byrne says
I often use soft cheeses instead of butter or margarine. Philadelphia if on offer or own brands I like to get the different flavors.
Carol Beall says
Clare Byrne: 1) I’ve had only butter & extra virgin olive oil in house for cooking, salad dressing for decades. (husband & I are in our 70s, I have already lived ten years longer than my mother or her three sisters did) Use small amount of butter for flavor. Also lots of avocados & nuts for healthy fats. 2) Are you into genealogy? Had my DNA test sent to Ancestry just two weeks ago, am awaiting results. I’m told I am 50 % Irish from my dad (Russell Lowell BYRNE) who was 100% Irish. Carol Ann BYRNE Beall.
J Duane Robinson says
Margarine was originally invented to fatten up turkeys and get them tp markete faster; more turkeps fattened faster = more profits for investors…however, the substance had a bad SIDE EFFECT: it killed more of the turkeys than it should have, making the total number of turkeys ready for sale less, and preventing anyone getting rich quick….when the investors demanded their money back, the owners of the new substance added yellow coloring to it, and started marketing it to PEOPLE instead! Then came the “Butter is BAD” for you campaign in the past which I remember quite well!
Creative Healthy Family says
Thank you for the information.
mng says
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-butter-truth/
Jessie R. Smith says
Wrong Napoleon, it was Napoleon III, the last Emperor of France. It wasn’t just for the military and the fact it might spoil, it was expensive.
Jessie R. Smith says
Grew up in the food industry, that is an urban myth that it was used to fatten turkeys. Spread to discredit margarine (no pun intended on the spread).
Jent says
SO YOU WOULD RATHER KILL BABY CALVES WITH A BOLT TO THE HEAD THAN EAT PLANT BASED BUTTER? ARE YOU REALLY A MOTHER?? DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE CRUEL WORLD OF DAIRY? EDUCATE YOURSELF PLEASE AND STOP EXPLOITING ANIMALS FOR YOUR OWN SATISFACTION. #DAIRYISSCARY LOOK IT UP. YOU’LL BE AVOIDING BUTTER RIGHT AWAY
Dotty says
Butter is made from cream made from cow’s milk NOT from calves.
Zoey says
They’re not suggesting that butter is made from calves. They mention a bolt to the head. This is because they have to keep the cows pregnant to produce milk, but end up with too many calves. They end up destroyed. Many times, a bolt to the head would be more humane.
John Riley says
theres no milk farmer on earth that would kill all his calves as you state yes they fatten the males and then kill them at a meat works with a bolt gun, which is a real humane way of killing cattle they die instantly Ive been guilty of working in a killing pen. as for your milk argument what would you rather have dead babys again your argument is a lot silly, when and if you have children and for some reason you cant breast feed them, what are you going to do, let them die or feed them caned milk powder
Fawn says
All dairies forcibly impregnate cows and take the milk meant for their babies to make products like milk, butter, and ice cream for human gluttony. The dairy industry is exploitation and murder, plain and simple. If the calf born is a female, they isolate her and raise her on formula until she can be exploited for her breast milk like her mother. If the calf is male, they are removed hours after birth and either killed immediately, sent to the auction for veal, or to a feedlot for cheap meat. The mother cow is “used up” at a fraction of her life and killed for cheap meat when she doesn’t produce enough for her captors to profit anymore. watch “dairy is Scary” on youtube. Educate yourselves and decide what type of person you want to be and how you feel paying for animal abuse when you could chose anything else to eat. I’ve seen this and more on small farms, livestock auctions, and factory farms with my own eyes.
John says
actually on a Kosher kill floor the bolt only renders the beast unconcious so it will bleed out. BUT , I 1000% agree with your point , they may as well be dead,,, they don’t feel anything.
Amanda says
You do know your plant based diet came from soil with bone meal in it. Where does bone meal come from animals. Bone meal is in all fertilizers.
Barbara says
I, too LOVE. the taste of butter and quit using margarine a long time ago. However as Jent points out, I cannot continue to use butter knowing what happens in the very cruel world of dairy. You just have to decide for yourself what you can tolerate. I cannot tolerate animal cruelty. Plant based everything for me!
Sandra Farrin says
I heartily agree!
KP says
Well, I have taken the time to read this article that is full of scientific untruths and then I read the comments🙄.
I am a firm believer in eating natural wholesome, I also believe my cholesterol has gone up 20 points in 3 months due to changing 1 thing in my diet… I went to using strictly butter in my kitchen.
Love the taste… Kerrygold is the butter that stays on the cabinet for the spread… It tastes the best to us… It also has a higher butterfat content. Then there is the European butter with it’s perfect butterfat content for baking… And regular butter for all else…
The thing is… You can’t just say it is better for you because it is natural… That I dangerous because a lot of people believe that the internet magicly removes stuff that isn’t true.
Beef steaks are all natural but are not better than GMO green beans that have been modified to keep worms from eating them.
Margarine is not the only butter alternative out there. Look around… Tatse and explore more… Butter and olive oil mix is a great alternative.
No, it was never used on turkeys.
Michael Cave says
I really don’t want this to fall on deaf ears, and hope I can help at least one person get that not understanding something doesn’t make it bad, scary, or unhealthy.
Almost everything you eat is developed by scientists. That includes your organic fruit and veg, and organic butter. There are teams of chemists at dairy plants to test and QC all products.
E-numbers are just a code assigned to molecules that indicates they have been tested and are safe for human consumption. Oxygen has an e-number!
Saying that saturated fat doesn’t lead to heart disease is outright incorrect. Here’s a review from Dec 2017. PLEASE search for things yourself, and don’t listen to non-referenced nonsensical opinions based on next to no information or understanding. The accurate scientific reports are literally at your fingertips, for you to make up your own minds!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0939475317302375
Heather Marsh says
I read a book by Jonathan S Christie called Food For Vitality.
In it he stated most margarine and ‘vegetable oil’ is made from seed and grain oils – and those predominantly omega 6 oils begin to go rancid as soon as (chemically) extracted from the seeds and grains. So then they have to be deodorized.
Secondly, in the human diet omega 6 ratio to omega 3 ratio is best kept below 6:1, but eating ‘vegetable oil’ and/or margarine can throw the ratio out badly leading to inflammatory disease – like heart disease.
I have been eating with friends at a local retirement home several times a week for just over a year and my negative health changes are noticeable.
Creative Healthy Family says
Thank you for sharing. Very interesting information.
Diana Binkowski says
I have been saying this for years. Our systems know how to digest milk. The chemicals don’t digest and are absorbed straight into the bloodstream which is where they gather together and cause the blockages in the arteries. I have not used anything but butter in many many years. I am 71 years old and take no prescription drugs for anything.
Creative Healthy Family says
Thank you so much for your comment.
Lee Recca says
Some good information here. Vitamin K is also found in the pith (white part) of citrus. A friend brought me some oranges that were grown in her greenhouse. I ate the whole thing, juice, rind, and pith. It was so good and tender. Supplements made from citrus pith are fed to racehorses, to strengthen their arteries and veins and prevent internal bleeding.
Creative Healthy Family says
Thanks for the information 🙂
Bob says
Eat Miyokos. All hand made. Tastes exactly like traditional butter without the saturated fat and cholesterol.
https://miyokos.com/collections/vegan-butter
Sandy Smith says
I’ll try to keep it short, but this article is SO misleading and I think people should be given “fair facts”, so I hope you will allow this comment to post, and I would appreciate the author’s thoughts.
First of all, this article is misleading on the comparison. You compare butter to Promise Fat Free Margarine, not even a typical (i.e. with fat) margarine! Seriously? You had to go look for the worst product out there to make your point? That’s not a fair representation on the point you are trying to make. There are MANY great plant-based butters on the market now and these are not “our mother’s margarine”, thank goodness! My personal favorite is Melt Organics Butter. It’s available at regular grocery stores everywhere. The included link is the ingredient list, which as you can see is not anything like the gross fat free margarine this article used as a comparison. The only ingredient listed that people may not recognize or may question is “Tocopherols”, which naturally occurs in olive and sunflower oils. It is also considered a vitamin E. Here’s Melt’s product page – http://meltorganic.com/our-products/
Very importantly, the base problem with this thinking is that there is nothing “real deal” about humans eating or drinking products make from breast milk that is intended to nourish a baby cow to grow into a huge animal. Also not “the real deal” is the fact that dairy cows are given Bovine somatotropin (bST), also known as bovine growth hormone, an animal drug approved by FDA to increase milk production in dairy cows. This is not “the real deal”, and has been suspect in why girls start their periods earlier/start puberty earlier than when we were growing up. While I personally don’t know of studies that have confirmed this, why risk it if there are options? It is not “the real deal” for a baby calf to be taken from his/her mother, who cared the baby for 9 months. And there is SO much other animal cruelty in the dairy industry! Cruelty is not “the real deal”! Read the information from Mercy for Animals for much more on this. https://mercyforanimals.org/heres-why-dairy-production-is-inherently
In closing, I do not consider butter “The real deal”, as you mention. I always encourage people to substitute delicious plant-based products for dairy products as much as possible. The fats in them are healthier, they are very tasty, so you are not giving up flavor AND you are not contributing to some of the worst animal cruelty in the farming/food industry. If you love animals, remember that cows are very sweet animals!
Lesley says
Brilliant someone with actual common sense.
Joanne says
I have lactose intolerance and eat butter, lots.
I also have adapted to a carnivore lifestyle which has cured my fibromyalgia and given me the most amazing skin hair nails and life back
Creative Healthy Family says
Thanks for sharing your story.
leo f konikowski says
i was told that in the beginning what became margarin came from that was a additive for farmers to mix with chemicals to help hold herbicides and pesticides on what they were spaying in the fields
Creative Healthy Family says
Thanks for sharing.
Lyn Spens says
The main reason I stopped using margarine and started using butter is because our dogs wouldn’t touch margarine. At the time my husband used butter and I used margarine. We had a half-grown lab puppy who would jump up to the counter and grab what smelled the tastiest. Boomer never touched the margarine but managed to get the butter more than once. Since most labs will eat almost anything, but would not touch the margarine I concluded that margarine wasn’t really food.
Creative Healthy Family says
Thanks for sharing your story.
Claudia Riddle says
Margarine is one ingredient from being plastic. Add one ingredient and you are eating plastic. Also margarine was invented to fatten turkeys. They ate it and died. So they decided to color it yellow and feed it to people. I only eat real butter
DANIEL LOLLAR says
Good article. However, I disagree with one of your comments, which is “The fat found in simple carbohydrates like bread and sugar is actually (according to recent research) what is to blame for heart disease.” Carbs are just that, carbs, not fat. Carbs are converted into fat by the body and stored as energy for hard times. Carbohydrates are being more and more implicated in heart disease and cardiovascular problems, let alone diabetes.
Gen Mcever says
My doctor told me He can tell during surgery who usesmargarine versus butter. Because butter deserves. Margarine it’s like a plastic it never dissolves and stays on your arteries forever
Rosemary Rimar says
One of the things that you did not address is the environmental impact of dairy products. You might want to research that. Cowspiracy.com is a good start. The video is on Netflix and for rent on Amazon. Also, “naturalness” is debatable. You do realize that the dairy industry is the most cruel industry imaginable, right? There is a 5 minute video on YouTube that spells it all out. “dairy is scary” And ultimately….the dairy industry IS the meat industry, as the cows and calves are sent to slaughter way before “naturalness”. Cow’s milk for baby cows is “naturalness”. Humans sucking milk from cows…..not so much!