Butter or Margarine: Which Is Healthier?

Just fresh bread with butter on it or is margarine healthier? The question hasn’t been resolved even among nutritionists because both spreadable fats have advantages and disadvantages. You can find out which ones here.

Margarine per se is no healthier than butter

Margarine is a product made from plants and contains significantly less cholesterol. It has fewer saturated but more unsaturated fatty acids. These strengthen the heart and circulation. There is now a huge selection of full-fat and half-fat variants, based on various vegetable fats such as sunflower, rapeseed, linseed or olive oils.

• Some of these oils contain plant sterols, which can lower cholesterol levels when eaten regularly in a certain amount on a daily basis. Margarine is made from various vegetable oils. Products with rapeseed or linseed oil in particular contain many important omega-3 and 6 fatty acids. They are good for the blood vessels and can also protect against cardiovascular diseases.
• The negative thing about margarine, however, is that the vegetable fat is usually artificially hardened to make it spreadable. Because of this, it’s often made with lots of unhealthy trans fats, which you should avoid if possible. Most vegetable fats such as olive or rapeseed oil are actually liquid. In order to get the margarine made from it solid, the liquid fats are solidified.
• This creates the unhealthy trans fats, which are bad for the cardiovascular system. Many margarine manufacturers use palm oil in production for this purpose . However, this is also subject to criticism, since so-called glycidyl fatty acid esters can form during production. They can develop into glycidol, which is suspected of being carcinogenic.
• After all, palm oil production is bad for the climate because it destroys large parts of the tropical rainforest. If you use palm or coconut fats for the margarine, these are spreadable even without chemical solidification. The problem, however, is that they are high in saturated fat, which is considered to be rather unhealthy.
• Stiftung Warentest recommends frying with margarine instead of butter. This applies to the full-fat margarine. It can be heated as high as the oil it is actually made of. Margarine lard is also suitable.

Butter usually does not contain any additives

Fresh butter is available in sweet cream and sour cream versions, salted or the classic mildly acidified version. Butter is an animal product made from cow’s milk and cream (cream). Sometimes there are also variants made from sheep’s or goat’s milk. The butter has a fat content of 80 to 90 percent, two thirds of which are saturated fatty acids.

• These are suspected of increasing the unfavorable LDL cholesterol in the blood. Too much cholesterol in the blood can build up in the arteries. However, researchers have since discovered that the saturated fats in butter tend to be short- or medium-chain. This means they have less of an effect on the “bad” LDL cholesterol than previously thought. They also do not increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
• If the cows have received a particularly large amount of green fodder, the proportion of healthy omega-3 fatty acids in the milk and the butter produced from it increases. In contrast to margarine, it contains a lot of natural vitamins A, D, E and vitamin K as an animal product. The vitamins contribute, among other things, to strengthening bones and are good for cartilage and teeth, but also for vision. These vitamins usually have to be artificially added to the vegetable fat spread in margarine.
• Butter has an incomparable taste, contains almost no additives and is also ideal for baking and cooking. It is also easy to digest. However, butter will splatter when frying due to its water content and should not be used for deep searing either.
• If you heat it too high and too fast, the milk proteins contained in the butter will burn. She turns black. It is therefore better to use butter products for frying that mainly contain only milk fat. These are, for example, clarified butter and butter fat or oil.

Conclusion: Butter or margarine is healthy in moderation

As with many things, the same applies to butter and margarine: eat only in moderation! Both spreads are moderately healthy. Although butter is higher in saturated fat and calories, there is no scientific evidence that consumption causes cardiovascular or vascular disease. However, the German Society for Nutrition advises people with high cholesterol or existing cardiovascular diseases to prefer margarine with many polyunsaturated fatty acids.

• If you want to eat less fat than and still want the butter taste, you can easily use spreadable fats with butter and rapeseed or olive oil. They have less fat and are a healthy alternative as they have a better distribution of fatty acids and more vegetable fats due to the added rapeseed oil.
• Unlike butter, they can be spread directly onto bread, even if they’ve just come out of the fridge. Stiftung Warentest recommends making sure that they do not contain any additives such as palm or coconut fat. You can bake with both butter and margarine.
• Overall, what counts is your personal preference in terms of taste, health aspects such as additives or the proportion of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Alternatively, you can decide based on your preference for animal or vegetable fats, based on price or organic quality. Margarine is clearly cheaper than butter, even in the organic segment.

Butter or Margarine – FAQs

What is better for weight loss margarine or butter?

If you want to lose weight , you should neither use butter nor margarine . A low-fat margarine (eg Lätta Original), for example, contains “only” 39 grams of fat and 360 calories per 100 grams. That is 40% fewer calories than “normal” margarine.

Why margarine instead of butter?

Margarine contains vegetable fat – and many vegetable spreadable fats are also a great alternative to butter when baking for vegans. Margarine is full of vitamins and unsaturated fatty acids. Margarine gives the same good baking results as butter.

Who has more calories butter or margarine?

calories . Butter and margarine are about the same in terms of calories. While 100 grams of butter have 741 kilocalories, 100 grams of margarine have 709 kilocalories.

Which is better for cholesterol butter or margarine?

The cholesterol content of margarine is much lower than that of butter . However, the vegetable fat is often artificially hardened and therefore contains many unhealthy trans fatty acids, which you should avoid if possible. Margarine contains less saturated fat and more unsaturated fat.

Which is the lowest calorie margarine?

With 39% fat, Deli Reform Die Leichte is ideal for anyone looking to cut calories and fat. The purely vegetable half-fat margarine is also suitable for a vegan diet and is of course also made from non-hydrogenated oils and fats.

What is the healthiest butter?

Kerrygold butter made from grass-fed milk contains the highest proportion of healthy ingredients such as beta-carotene, vitamins A and E and omega-3 fatty acids . The content of valuable ingredients in butter made from grass-fed milk is considerably higher than in conventional butter.

Is butter and margarine the same?

Margarine as a substitute for butter. In contrast to butter , margarine is not only made from purely natural ingredients that are industrially processed. It is an emulsion consisting mainly of vegetable oils, fats and drinking water, which are mixed with the help of emulsifiers.

What is the difference between margarine and butter?

Info: So the difference between butter and margarine is that butter is made from natural milk fat and margarine is an industrial product made from refined animal and vegetable oils.

Which butter has the fewest calories?

Although nut butters also contain quite a lot of fat – but natural – and are therefore high in calories, they have fewer calories than butter . Peanut butter averages 588 calories per 100 grams, cashew butter 587 calories, and almond butter 614 calories.

Which butter for high cholesterol?

Ghee (Ayurvedic clarified butter) was able to lower cholesterol levels in a study in a special preparation. In another study, taking medicinal ghee resulted in significantly better cardiovascular health than people who didn’t take ghee.

Which margarine is good for cholesterol?

Becel pro-activ is a spread developed by Unilever Bestfoods for people with high cholesterol levels . The margarine – as it says on the packaging – “has been proven to help lower cholesterol levels”.

What is vegetable margarine?

Is a margarine that must consist of at least 97 percent vegetable fats. In addition, more than 50 percent of the fatty acids used in the production of fats must be contained in their natural form. The proportion of essential linoleic acid must be at least 15 percent.

What is Rama Butter or Margarine?

That was once: ” Rama Original” is no longer margarine , but a fat spread. The reason: it only contains 70 percent fat. When our margarine test was published in issue 2/08, ” Rama Original” still had a fat content of 80 percent and was therefore a margarine.

Why is butter unhealthy?

The fat content of butter is usually 80 to 90 percent. So it’s hardly surprising that it’s a real calorie bomb. 100 grams contain about 740 calories. But that’s not all: the fat spread also contains cholesterol.