Polyunsaturated margarine

competitionscafe

I agree, butter is a much more natural product than margarine and far tastier too. Of course it's unhealthy to eat it by the bucket load but that applies to many things, everything in moderation.


"History suggests you might want to wait a few decades or so before adding such novelties to your diet, the substitution of margarine for butter being the classic case in point. My mother used to predict "they" would eventually discover that butter was better for you. She was right: the trans-fatty margarine is killing us. Eat food, not food products." Michael Pollan
http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=77

"In fact, when the government decided to tell people to stop eating fat or cut down on saturated fat, the science was very thin then. But the net result of that public health campaign was to essentially get people off of saturated fat or try to get them onto trans fats, and we've since learned that that was really bad advice because the link between trans fats and heart disease is the strongest link we have of any fat to heart disease. They told us butter is evil and margarine is good, and it turned out to be the opposite." Michael Pollan
http://www.michaelpollan.com/press.php?id=92

cave_2

thriftlady wrote: »

Heart disease is a modern disease. I think the first case was recorded in 1912. The number of people suffering from the disease expanded rapidly between the 1920s and the 1960s. This directly corresponds to the rapid rise in the marketing of fake butter ie margarine in all its guises.

Human beings have been making and eating butter and other saturated fats for thousands and thousands of years. Butter is good for you, it is one of the best sources of fat-soluble vitamins A,D and E. You need fat to absorb these vitamins.

As for cholesterol clogging up youg children's arteries remember that breast milk has a higher proportion of cholesterol than almost any other food. Saturated fat and cholesterol are vital for the development of children's and babies' brains.

butter is a natural food made simply by churning cream. Margarine is made like this and has to be coloured yellow before it goes in the tub because it is grey otherwise.

Butter contains the same amount of calories as margarine.

Do yourself and your family a favour and stick to real, natural foods not fake foods that may well have caused the health problems that plague so many.

It's been shown that unsaturated fat is better than saturated fat for you - in terms of heart disease and cholesterol, if nothing else.

Saturated means 'full up'. The difference between saturated and unsaturated fat, is that the chemical bonds between atoms in saturated fat are all full up, and in unsaturated, they are not. This changes the shape -

Saturated fat looks flat like this:

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Unsaturated is kinked:

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(imagine the lines join up!)



saturated fat can stack on top of each other

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but the kinks in unsaturated fat gets in the way, pushing them apart

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\_/

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\_/

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'hard fat' (butter) can stack like sheets of paper, whereas 'fluffier' unsaturated fat is runny (oil)

'Poly' means 'many' - it means that there are lots of kinks.

Omega-3 and Omega-6 which are shown to be very beneficial, are polyunsaturates.


Trans fats are kinks which have been bent the wrong way - usually by heating too high. These are bad because they are not found in nature, and they confuse your body. They can be avoided by using oil meant for frying.


Whether you want to use butter or margarine is up to you - margarine is definitely better for your arteries. But try not to submit to scare stories or dodgy chemistry

Hth

C

cave_2

gah, the lines were supposed to line up!

Penelope_Penguin

wigglebeena wrote: »

Monounsaturated oils and fats are good for you as they are very stable and do not react with the cell walls in your body, e.g. olive oil, walnut oil, sesame oil. Polyunsaturated fats are highly reactive: they have charged molecules that seek to become more stable, including by ripping oppositely charged molecules out of the walls of your cells and damaging them. Not good!

Sorry, that's not quite right, and misunderstands the chemistry involved Alpha linoleic acid, for example, is a polunsaturated fatty acid, and is an omega-3 acid, essential to human nutrition.

I can't remember enough chemistry to say why trans fatty acids are even worse, just that they are. But generally, poly=bad!

Poly doesn't necessarily mean bad - polysaccharides are essential to living things.

Polyunsaturated fats will usually be liquids, btw - the more unsaturation, the lower the melting point.

Penny (who has a PhD in chemistry )

cave_2

wigglebeena wrote: »

Monounsaturated oils and fats are good for you as they are very stable and do not react with the cell walls in your body, e.g. olive oil, walnut oil, sesame oil. Polyunsaturated fats are highly reactive: they have charged molecules that seek to become more stable, including by ripping oppositely charged molecules out of the walls of your cells and damaging them. Not good!

I can't remember enough chemistry to say why trans fatty acids are even worse, just that they are. But generally, poly=bad!

We don't have cell walls! (plants, yeast, bacteria do) We have cell membranes. Cholesterol is a part of our cell membranes (it's bad when it's in your arteries though...)

wigglebeena

I bow to a superior level of pedantry... It's been an awful long time since my degree. Or maybe the poly fats have been attacking me neuronal membranes.

wigglebeena

Penelope_Penguin wrote: »

Poly doesn't necessarily mean bad - polysaccharides are essential to living things.

Well, I meant specifically poly fats being sold in big tubs in supermarkets, but yes, bit general/vague.

Good for you with yer Phd BTW.

wigglebeena

blimmin double posts.

wigglebeena

Myself, I know big lots and am a Professor of Stuffology (as I just asserted to OH when he said 'Whadda YOU know?' in response to some genial mockery).

picklepick

thriftlady wrote: »

Heart disease is a modern disease. I think the first case was recorded in 1912. The number of people suffering from the disease expanded rapidly between the 1920s and the 1960s. This directly corresponds to the rapid rise in the marketing of fake butter ie margarine in all its guises.

I actually think has more to do with the industrial revoloution, and the invention of the automobile. manual labour severely reduced, no more walking everwhere... no more carpet beating, no more using the stairs as lifts were invented...no more washing by hand as people had washing machines and then the dreaded tv!!

more to do with lifestyle than diet!