Home » Recipes » Why butter's better!

Why butter's better!

A Question of Taste
Flavor is a matter of opinion: What tastes good to one person won’t necessarily appeal to someone else. Still, if you ask any of the millions of margarine enthusiasts out there why they eschew butter, chances are they’ll talk about the purported health bene¬fits or the lower price.

Though there is no scientific data out there to prove it—short of a few “blind taste tests” undertaken over the years by a number of cooking magazines—most people agree that butter tastes better. Even when a particular brand of margarine wins praise for its flavor, the compliment usually rests on the merit of its resemblance to butter. Real butter is the standard by which we judge other spreads.

The Skinny on Fats
Like many things that taste good, butter has a bad reputation. People assume anything we enjoy must somehow be bad for us. With butter, that assumption has been strengthened by the margarine industry, which, for years, has claimed to be healthier for the heart and better for the waistline.

Those claims are not true. Both butter and margarine contain about the same amount of calories and overall fat. The attacks leveled at butter are based on its higher content of saturated fat—fat from animal sources linked by the American Heart Association to a higher risk of heart disease.

But a 1994 Harvard University study showed that hydrogenated oils, which are contained in many brands of margarine, nearly double the risk of heart attack. Several other major studies have also indicated a strong correlation between earlier death and consumption of high amounts of trans-fat, the kind of fat contained in most brands of margarine.

READ about more of the reasons why we feel Butter is Better in the 2008 Farmers' Almanac. Order a copy today.

Which one is your favorite? Butter or margarine? Share your thoughts in our forum and watch for our poll.