These non-butter margarine products, including as Flora, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Country Crock, Imperial, Brummel & Brown, Promise, Becel, Rama, and Blue Band, can be found in abundance in the refrigerator area of any grocery store.

Although margarine sales are declining, millions of people still purchase (and consume) this processed trash on a regular basis all over the world.

I decided it was time to speak up after learning that a new client of mine was still buying margarine for his family. If your health is important to you, you should immediately quit using margarine.

Read on to learn why if you’re curious.

I’ve provided a list of 9 reasons why margarine should be avoided below.

9 Arguments Against Margarine

1. PUFAS are high in bad fats

The main component of margarine is a base of vegetable oil. This vegetable oil could be soybean oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, or any of the many different vegetable oil derivatives, depending on the specific brand.

PUFAs, commonly known as polyunsaturated fats, make up the majority of vegetable oils. These fats are quickly oxidized (by heat and light), and it has been demonstrated that ingesting oxidized PUFAs can result in a LOT of health issues. 

These particularly sensitive fatty acids are more likely to be oxidized if you use margarine for frying, cooking, or just general heating. However, because to the heating treatment used during the manufacturing process, the damage may already have been done even if you are not cooking margarine.

Vegetable oils are also rich in PUFAs in the omega-6 form. Omega-6 fatty acid intake is associated with a number of diseases, including arthritis, diabetes, cancer, IBS, and cardiovascular disease.

2. Deficiency in “Good” Fats

The idea that saturated fats are unhealthy is one of the key reasons people keep buying margarine. Health professionals and research studies have repeatedly disproven this myth. In my own essay, 9 Reasons Why Your Doctor Is Wrong About Fat, I go into greater depth.

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However, the idea that saturated fats are neither dangerous nor unhealthy but rather good for our health is still not widely accepted. Manufacturers of margarine take advantage of the general lack of knowledge on this subject to promote their ‘low in saturated fat’ margarine products as healthful.

Meanwhile, margarine products are incredibly high in harmful fats like polyunsaturated fats and trans fats rather than the healthy saturated fats found in butter, the superior margarine alternative.

3. Fat Trans

There are further problems with margarine’s fatty acid profile besides its high polyunsaturated fat content. Large quantities of seriously harmful Trans Fats can be found in margarine products.

Trans fats are artificial fatty acids produced during the hydrogenation process. Vegetable oils that are liquid become solid fats by hydrogenation.

These newly produced lipids are extremely toxic, and eating them has been related to heart disease, increased inflammation, insulin resistance, infertility, and diabetes, as well as other cardiovascular issues.

Although trans fats have been significantly reduced in margarine products over the years, it is still typical to find these hazardous fats in margarine goods. Although there must be fewer than 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving for a product to claim to contain “zero trans fats,” according to food labeling regulations.

Man-made trans fats are dangerous at ANY amount, according to the US Food & Drug Association.

4. Vitamin and mineral deficiency

Margarine lacks crucial vitamins A and K, in contrast to butter. Actually, butter contains a lot of fat-soluble vitamins, and the butter will be more nutrient-dense the healthier the cow was. In fact, some of these minerals guard against heart disease.

For example, natural vitamin A is crucial for thyroid and cardiovascular health.

Vitamin E, another antioxidant found in butter, can guard against the harmful effects of dietary PUFA fats.

Margarine lacks these nutrients since it is made from highly processed vegetable oils. Some margarine producers now add synthetic vitamins like Vits. A and D to their products.

Problems do, however, accompany this manipulation. A synthetic form of vitamin A may be harmful to the body. (3)

Butter and margarine are quite comparable to one another in terms of energy content and “total fat” content. But once you get below the macro level and compare the micronutrients, it becomes evident that butter is a more nutrient-rich food source than margarine, not to mention that its fatty acid composition is far more stable.

5. GMO Plants

We are aware that vegetable oils from plants including safflower, sunflower, soybean, and cottonseed are used to make margarine.

These crops unfortunately contain a lot of genetically engineered plants. The production yields are higher as a result, which lowers consumer prices, but this is quite concerning from a health perspective.

GMO crops are engineered to withstand common weed killers like Roundup while also being hazardous to pests. As a result, the farmer only needs to spray weed killer on the crops, and he or she can rest assured that the crops will continue to grow even as the weeds and pests go.

As a result, poisons like glyphosate, the active component in Roundup, enter our diet when these GMO, roundup-resistant crops are consumed. Consumption of glyphosate is associated with a growing number of environmental and health issues.

Choosing organic and GMO-free goods is one strategy to limit your diet’s consumption of glyphosate and GMOs. However, doing so does not address the additional 10 risks associated with margarine intake.

6. Production Methods

Butter production is an easy process. The cream is skimmed from the top of cow’s milk, which is then churned to create butter (but this step can be avoided if you prefer raw milk). You only need a beater to complete this task at home.

With margarine, the procedure is more difficult and calls for cutting-edge technology. Top 5 advantages of carrots for health

It is much harder to separate the oils from a vegetable than it is to get the cream from milk. Extreme pressure and a lot of heat are needed for the extraction of vegetable oil. The PUFAs that are contained in the seed oil and are easily oxidized are severely harmed by both processes.

Many of these derived oils are extremely poisonous when they are purified. For instance, consuming natural cottonseeds can result in potassium shortage and infertility.

Manufacturers chemically process the oils to get rid of these contaminants, which solves one issue but creates another. Hexane, a solvent, is used to treat vegetable oils. Hexane is used in conjunction with bleaches and deodorizers to get rid of unpleasant tastes, colors, and odors. Natural vegetable oil that has been partially hydrogenated has an amorphous gray hue. Manufacturers add yellow coloring to the margarine because this is pretty unpleasant for a food product.

7. Hydrogenation.

To raise the product’s melting point, hydrogenation is a chemical process. Margarine is effectively made solid at higher temperatures; if not, it would immediately melt to liquid after being taken out of the refrigerator.

By transporting hydrogen through the product while it is in the presence of a metal catalyst agent, vegetable oils are hydrogenated.

Trans fats may be produced through the hydrogenation process, which modifies the oil’s molecular structure. Man-made trans fats are harmful to the body since the body cannot simply handle these newly produced molecules.

All of this is done to prevent margarine from melting right after it is taken out of the fridge. The natural melting point of lipids with higher saturated fat content, such as butter and coconut oil, is higher.

8. Preservatives BHT

Synthetic vitamins, which are frequently added to margarine products and pose health risks, were already discussed; nevertheless, other chemicals may also be added prior to shipping.

The artificial margarine product has preservatives added to it to extend its shelf life. To do this, butylated hydroxytoluene, or BHT, is frequently utilized in goods made from vegetable oils.

BHT is frequently promoted as being “safe,” although multiple studies on BHT demonstrate that this is not the case. Consumption caused bladder cancer in animals, according to a 1984 research.

A 1988 study discovered that BHT was harmful and tumor-promoting.

Given the potential hazards associated with BHT, it is preferable to abstain from intake altogether.

9. Plant Sterols

Sterols, commonly referred to as steroid alcohols, are found in both plants and animals in the wild. They have a reducing effect on human cholesterol.

Marketers of margarine are well aware that many of their consumers have erroneous concerns about cholesterol and saturated fat. In order to promote the “cholesterol lowering” benefits of their margarine products, the producers and marketers take advantage of this unfounded worry.

This is fantastic, however lowering cholesterol is not the key to reducing cardiovascular risk. Worse still is the possibility that these plant sterols will alter hormone levels in the body.

Consuming these sterols could impair the body’s amounts of carotenoids and antioxidants, which could cause cancer and birth abnormalities (some countries require foods that contain cholesterol-lowering plant sterols to carry and advisory warning because of this risk). Animal studies have also demonstrated that consuming plant sterols causes endocrine problems and infertility.

Final Thoughts

I fail to understand why you would eat margarine. Yet millions of people continue to pay for this poison on a regular basis despite the fact that you couldn’t buy me to consume it.

Please research the “cholesterol myth” if your reasoning for avoiding butter and switching to margarine is based on concerns about saturated fat and cholesterol. Even yet, if you decide that butter is not for you, I strongly advise using coconut oil or even olive oil as a natural substitute for the highly processed margarine products.

Marketing campaigns literally brainwash society. You must realize that your health is being exploited for your hard-earned money if you base your health decisions on TV advertising.

Apply this criterion to your decision-making if making “good” eating and buying decisions is challenging or overwhelming: Did my great-grandma eat this as a child? There is a strong chance that the food item is not the best for your health if the response is “No.”

LEARN MORE: IS CHEWING GUM TOXIC?