What is Healthier? Butter or Margarine?

The dietary facts for butter & margarine....

Ah - the creamy taste of butter. There's nothing quite like it, except perhaps when butter becomes married to bread - fresh out of the oven. Particularly when you're standing there, like a wedding guest waiting to catch the bouquet. But sometimes, that bouquet - no matter how beautiful, can be filled with buzzing bees with pointy stingers.

Time to Cut the Butter

Yes, we are sad to say that butter is brimming in saturated fat and is very efficient in clogging the old arteries which in turn, leads to heart disease - a very good reason to 'start cutting the butter'. And margarine doesn't get a clean bill of health either because the fatty acids may do as much damage to those arteries as good old butter.

So much badness to report - it's enough to make a grown dieter cry. BUT - another downside is that foods high in saturated fat also contribute to weight gain, which also emerges a Deep Diet Thought, "Is heart disease actually due to the foods we eat OR does weight gain cause heart disease?" But that's an article for another day because today, we're here to get the facts on those common fats that are so prevalent in the average Joe's and Joe-ette's daily diet.

So how does butter stack up to margarine? Here's the Diet Stick:

Type of Fat	Butter	Butter	Margarine	No Calorie Butter
Form Used	Solid	Whipped	Spreadable	Spray
Amount	2 tsp	2 tsp	2 tsp	5 shots
Calories	68	45	67	0
Fat Grams	7.7	5.1	7.6	0
Saturated Fats	4.8	3.2	1.3	0
Monounsaturated Fats	2.2	1.5	2.7	0
Polyunsaturated Fats	0.3	0.2	3.3	0
Cholesterol	21 mg	14 mg	0 mg	0 mg
Sodium	78 mg	52 mg	101 mg	75
Fiber	0	0	0	0

In this corner, we have Butter weighing in at 68 calories per serving!

Wait. Is that 68 calories OR 45 calories?

Well, it depends on the type of butter, as well as the brand of butter we're looking at. For example, whipped butter contains about 30% fewer calories than solid butter. It's also easier to spread and a little goes a long way.

Butter Trick for Dieters

When using butter, take 1/2 of the amount that you would usually use and add chopped, fresh herbs such as sweet basil. You'll add a healthy dose of green to your diet plan, as well as new and exciting flavor that will leave you laughing all the way to the Diet Bank.

FOODNOTE RECAP & BETTER BUTTER CHOICES:

A better Butter Choice is whipped butter as a little goes a long way and it also comes with a nice calorie-reduction tag at about 30% off the regular calories in solid butter. What a sale!

An even better Butter Choice is whipped vegetable-based margarine.

And even a better Butter Choice is light or diet-wise margarine & spreads. Just a caveat: No calorie butter sprays lean a good ways over the sodium pit in the Old Diet Trail. Five shots from most bottled varieties contains about 75 mg of sodium, but who can stop at five teensy shots unless one is a Power Dieter?

Also, the base of most of these mock-butters is soy bean oil and as we know, oil doesn't come without calories. The key to the no-calorie sprays is using the minimal amount as suggested on the container label.

And an even better Butter Choice are foods that add flavor without adding fat such as spices, herbs, extracts, honey, jams, and preserves.

Butter and Margarine are 100% fat but most importantly, they lack fiber which works to balance the fat making it painfully easy to fall off the balance beam straight into the Old Diet Fat Pit.

So does all of this mean that dieters should abstain from the tempting sweetness of butter? Nah - just enjoy in moderation.

Try to bring the focus of butter to the TASTE of butter rather than focusing on how much you would like to enjoy at meal time. Savor the flavor and lube those hot buns lightly - and weight loss will come much swifter.