BUTTER VERSUS MARGARINE

From a health standpoint, there is an enormous difference between butter and margarine. The only reason to choose margarine would be that you actually prefer its taste to that of butter, and your budget is limited. If you don't want to eat butter, for whatever reason, don't make it worse by eating margarine. With margarine, you are just adding one more toxic factor into your internal bodily environ­ment—a factor that could easily be avoided.

Cholesterol: The Great Myth 99

Even though butter should never be avoided due to its choles­terol content, its effect on cholesterol levels cannot be understood independent of one's toxin levels. When patients underwent the re­moval of dental toxicity, their elevated cholesterol levels would rou­tinely drop in spite of the fact that they were being encouraged to eat as much butter and as many eggs on a daily basis as they de­sired. Cholesterol-laden foods raise the blood cholesterol levels only when toxins are present that need neutralization or inactivation.

In his impressive book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Wes-ton Price, D.D.S., repeatedly made the same correlations between choice of foods and maintenance (or recovery) of health.³¹ The in­clusion of the modern processed foods of the "civilized" popula­tions of the world, refined sugar and white flour, consistently destroyed the dental and general health of a wide variety of isolated populations that Dr. Price studied in the early 1930s. Dr. Price per­sonally observed the eating habits and health of fourteen isolated groups of people in Switzerland, Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, and North America. He found that simple, unrefined foods sustained health. Raw butter and other raw dairy foods produced from properly raised cows and goats would often single-handedly reverse advanced diseases in the individuals who were able to quit eating sugar and white flour. It should be noted that Dr. Price never observed total vegetarianism among any of the healthy groups, although they all ate meat far less frequently than most Americans do today

Margarine, a creation of the scientific laboratory, really bears no resemblance to butter, except in appearance. And this appearance is due to the yellow dye that is added to the white margarine to convince consumers that they really are consuming a legitimate "substitute" for butter. Incredibly, in the 1930s, margarine was actually sold with a packet of yellow dye that the consumer could mix in with the margarine to complete the butter masquerade. Today's margarines are commonly based on a number of cheap oils,

100 Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health

including soybean, corn, canola, and cottonseed oils. These oils typ­ically have had all of the nutrient value extracted or processed out of them. Nearly all of the proteins, fiber, minerals, lecithin, and other desirable natural components have been removed. Most of the vitamins are also gone.

To make matters worse, the oil that is used to make margarine is first typically hydrogenated to turn it from a liquid into a solid, forming many toxic substances in the process. Margarines then end up with a large amount of what is known as frans-fatty acids in them. These frans-fatty acids have been associated with increased disease and compromise of the cardiovascular system, immune system, and reproductive system. I never cease to be amazed that there is still probably not one coronary care unit in any hospital in the United States that even offers its patients the option of butter over this harmful synthetic spread.

Butter, when it comes from a quality source, maintains a high food value. Even when coming from pasteurized cream, butter still maintains a positive food value, in sharp contrast to pasteurized milk and other pasteurized milk products. Perhaps an additional benefit of butter that is less recognized is that its increased use in cooking also keeps us consuming less of the toxically produced and commonly consumed seed and vegetable oils.

While this may be a bit of an oversimplification, I maintain that limiting yourself to olive oil and butter in your cooking is the healthy way to go. Few other readily available oils are without some degree of toxicity. Remember that margarine is at least one source of toxicity that you can easily eliminate from your daily diet.