I was led to believe by marketing campaigns, advertisements, and labels reading “healthy” that margarine is better for you – were you? When I first started learning about margarine, its history, and how it's made, I was so disgusted that I started using organic alternatives such as ghee, coconut oil, and olive oil instead.
How margarine is made
First of all, margarine is made from rancid oils that are cheap and unusable. The heat treatment used to remove oil from the seeds is what makes the oil rancid. When no more oil can be removed, it's chemically treated to remove even more. Rancid oils cause all kinds of health issues and the chemicals used cause cancer.
The oil seeds used are mostly GMO – corn, soy, canola, and cottonseed. Why would anyone want to consume GMO foods day after day, meal after meal? We don’t know what kinds of allergies, digestive issues, and diseases are being caused by GMO foods.
Oils are steam-cleaned before processing to remove pesticides and solvents. Do you believe that these are all removed? I don't. And I know what's not remaining in the oil after steam-cleaning: vitamins or antioxidants.
Oils are mixed with toxins such as nickel to prepare for the hydrogenation process. Then hydrogen is forced into the molecules using heat and pressure, turning it into a semi-solid material. Trans fats, the most deadly kind of fats, are produced during this partial hydrogenation process.
After this, the oil looks like grayish, nasty, stinky grease blobs. Soap-like emulsifiers are mixed in to smooth it out. Then it is steam cleaned again because of the smell! Of course the color is nasty, too, so they bleach it to remove that as well.
After all of this, food coloring is added to make it yellow, and artificial flavors are added.
Margarine – the good old days
Do you remember, decades ago, when margarine was first introduced to us as the healthy alternative to butter? Even doctors told everyone to switch to margarine. Well, it turns out that the margarine of the day was full of trans fat.
Margarine helped to cause the tremendous increase in heart disease in the following decades. People who ignored their doctors and continued eating butter remained healthier than those who switched!
I’ll stick to natural products, thanks.
I’m making my own decisions now instead of watching television commercials. I’ll stick to using organic ghee, coconut oil, and olive oil. The facts are just too disgusting to continue using margarine or spreads.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
Published January 22, 2013 at 7:20 AM
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