What about Margarine?

[TromboneAl]

I'm really on a roll here, posting innocuous threads on topics like "My Milk Tastes Funny" or "Hold the Roast Beef" that turn into 19-page mini-dramas, and even get shut down, so I thought I'd try another.

What do you think about margarine? We're an ICBINBL house (pronounced "Ick-Bin-Bull").

 

[bssc]

OK, everyone play nice please and stay on topic.

 

[cantlogin]

I think its terrible. Almost poisonous.

That's what I think.

 

[Janet H]

I think its terrible. Almost poisonous.

That's what I think.

Double ditto for that "fat free" margarine. Have you ever tried to melt it? Am I still on topic?

Sorry - groveling now.

 

[W2R]

Double ditto for that "fat free" margarine. Have you ever tried to melt it? Am I still on topic?

Sorry - groveling now.

I use fat free margarine. The taste is foul but I suppose it is better than nothing. I don't try to melt it or cook with it. Mine comes in liquid form in a squeeze bottle.

I eat like this during the week so that I can eat our FABULOUS New Orleans restaurant food on the weekends.

 

[saluki9]

If my life is a little shorter because I prefer butter, then so be it. Margarine tastes like crap.

After all, it may not be. It seems the scientific jury is still out.

 

[travelover]

Didn't Napoleon promote the invention of margarine or was it Hitler?

Hows that for a record to a Hitler citation?

 

[Moemg]

It gets really bizarre looking when it's melted plus it makes strange sounds in the microwave .How can that be good ?

 

[cantlogin]

If my life is a little shorter because I prefer butter, then so be it. Margarine tastes like crap.

After all, it may not be. It seems the scientific jury is still out.

Butter is healthier than margarine.

 

[Rustic23]

We have Smart Balance and Butter in the fridge, and we use them somewhat interchangeable. For baking Cookies, only butter.

 

[OldAgePensioner]

My only complaint is that not a lot of young ladies in Singapore have every heard of a "I Can't Believe It Isn't Butter" Party. They all know about Mazola parties.

And margarine is much harsher on parts.

 

[samclem]

Same as Rustic. Butter for some things, "good" margarine for others.
(Though I'd prefer to use butter from cows fed a diet consisting entirely of organic margarine, if that were available to the proletariat and not kept off the market by unknown conspiratorial forces. But, I digress.)

 

[donheff]

Didn't Brando use margarine in "Last Tango?"

 

[OldAgePensioner]

donheff,
yes, and look what happened to him. Margarine induced expansion.

 

[Razor]

Promise Buttery spread works for me. Only butter for cooking.

 

[jambo101]

Here in Quebec the government has always had this legislation that you cannot add color to margarine so it tends to look like white Lithium grease.Probably the only so called food product you can leave in your fridge for 20yrs and it still looks and smells the same..My preference is real butter..

 

[brewer12345]

I haven't bought in I don't know how many years. I use butter instead on the rare occasion when I actually eat the yellow stuff (on toast, occasionally in baking, and in the odd sandwich with peanut butter). Mostly I cook with extra virgin olive oil.

 

[Meadbh]

I actually LIKE margarine because you can spread it straight out of the fridge.

 

[brewer12345]

I actually LIKE margarine because you can spread it straight out of the fridge.

KY spreads even easier right out of the fridge, but I still prefer butter.

 

[saluki9]

KY spreads even easier right out of the fridge, but I still prefer butter.

Yeah, but it tastes like crap on toast.

And you don't have to remember to remove the butter from the fridge before your inlaws come over.

 

[brewer12345]

And you don't have to remember to remove the butter from the fridge before your inlaws come over.

Well, maybe in your family.

 

[Khan]

Your body has some idea of how to digest butter.

I use butter (though not very often) and EVOO and various other oils (walnut, grapeseed, sesame seed, peanut).

 

[ladelfina]

For spreading, you can buy whipped butter which I have seen by Land o' Lakes and maybe Breakstone's. There was some Danish Lurpak butter on sale here and I tried it.. it was really delicious (and fairly soft). Worth the price (maybe) anywhere the butter flavor is key, like popcorn!

With the cheapest butter, which is what I usually buy for cooking, I had to keep an eye on some recipes here.. there is definitely more water in the bargain brand.

I never liked either the taste or the idea of margarine and try to avoid it.

I use fat free margarine. The taste is foul but I suppose it is better than nothing.

W2R.. why would you eat something that tastes "foul"!?

Life is too short. I would either use a dab of butter, or a bit of olive oil, or just go without. If I HAD to have, say, toast in the AM, and I couldn't stand it dry.. I'd put a thin slice of lo-fat turkey breast or something on it instead. Naked string beans to me would be preferable than ones w/margarine.

---

INVENTION: Margarine

INVENTOR: Hippolyte Mege-Mouries, France

YEAR: 1869

HOW INVENTED: Because butter was expensive and in short supply, Emperor Napoleon III, of France, sought a cheap, tasty substitute for it. Also, on the eve of the Franco-Prussian War, he needed a butter substitute that would store well on ships. The Emperor sponsored a contest, and offered a prize for the best butter substitute submitted. Mege-Mouries mixed suet fat in water heated at low temperature, and then added milk. He called the resultant product oleomargarine because he thought beef fat possessed fatty margaric acid, which it doesn't. But his nutritious, inexpensive butter substitute won the prize. It became popular in France, spread through Europe, and during a butter shortage in the U.S. during W.W. I, it caught on in the New World as well.

http://www.trivia-library.com/a/history-and-story-behind-inventions-margarine.htm

Sounds possibly more healthful than many of today's versions.

 

[HFWR]

We have Smart Balance and Butter in the fridge, and we use them somewhat interchangeable. For baking Cookies, only butter.

Ditto

 

[Goonie]

We've got Country Crock and real butter in our refrigerator. I much prefer real butter! I'll use the CC if I HAVE to.

If my life is a little shorter because I prefer butter, then so be it.

Ditto!