The Facebook meme was intended to be funny. This was something that has been going around on Facebook, stated as a fact. I don't know it to be a fact, but then I wouldn't even know where to look.
What's one molecule, anyway? I grant you we can read anything on Facebook. Being around before margarine came to be, then getting my first block of white margarine similar in size to a pound of butter. Margarine came with a powder, redish in color. You mixed the powder with the white margarine; it turned yellow if you mixed it well. It tasted like a slice of lard you bought at the grocery store to cook with, lard, the bad stuff. We cooked salt pork to go with what ever we had for breakfast. I used salt pork grease when ever other folks used margarine. I hated oleo margarine but I never had butter until I went in the army. I know alll this wasn't necessary but oleo margarine was more like a pound of lard than what plastic came to be made from, whether one molecule or one mile and ten ounces. I've tasted margarine and i've tasted plastic, in the liquid stage before it hardened. Plastic give the impression it would stop your innards up faster than a rattlesnake could bite you when he's hurt or mad.
Imagine that on the left, you have a plastic milk jug. On the right, you have a lb. of margarine. Move them closer and closer until they are separated by one molecule of whatever and there you have it, margarine is one molecule away from plastic. That's about as close as you're going to get because plastic is a polymer and margarine is a molecular mess of processed fats that I do not care for even if "it almost tastes like It almost tastes like butter. " It is a good thing that the majority of people do not make the same comparison concerning how genetically close human beings are to a pork chop or even a turnip..............
@Von Jones Unless you can control all other variables affecting cholesterol, it is difficult to accuratelt state that any change from previous reading was caused by one thing only (butter). Frank
This is true and I have made changes over time to help lower my numbers and if this change makes a difference in the smallest way I'm good.
I found this little video that shows Country Crock turning into something that does look like plastic. It is not really a valid comparison probably because he is comparing it to Blue Bonnet, which is another margarine, and it does not turn into plastic. In any case, the video is interesting.
I apologize for leading the OP in another direction. I just don't get it. @Yvonne Smith - good video.
I roate between Country Crock and real butter..... I have no idea why I do this. Most of what we eat is tainted some way or other....so I gave up a ways back worrying about any of this.
In my younger days, when we were ovo-lacto vegetarian, we used to blend our own "margarine" by mixing melted butter (cooled) with an equal amount of good vegetable oil. We got a spread that was softer than butter and quite good for cooking/sautéing. At the time we were rather poor also, and butter was more expensive than oil. The video above must be where Ken got the subject of this thread. The residue reminded me a little of what you get when you dilute egg white with water and fry it. I have no idea what Country Crock is made of, but just try to avoid any food that contains ingredients you cannot pronounce.
I used to make that same spread, @Don Alaska ! Gaylord Hauser used to recommended it in his health and nutrition books and he called it “Sun Butter”. If I remember right, he put the oil out in the sunshine for a while because he believed that the sunlight would irradiate the oil with beneficial properties. If course, back then, everyone was being told that the polyunsaturated vegetable oils were the very best thing for people to use, and even nutritionists were not aware of the chemicals and bleaching treatments that the vegetable oils were put through before they were bottled and put on grocery store shelves. Even so, the sun butter was still probably healthier for us than margarine, with its trans-fats, hydrogenated oils, and other questionable ingredients. I did try making the sun butter with warmed coconut oil, since it is not as processed when you get the unrefined virgin coconut oil. It actually works pretty well, and unless it is really hot weather, the coconut oil will harden up again and keep the butter mixture at a more solid consistancy.
I noticed yesterday that, while there are still fake butters offered for sale, most of the spreads in our local supermarket are various brands and types of butter, so I would think that means that more people are using actual butter.
Ive never used margarine but don't use great amounts of butter either. In fact I can't remember the last time I actually bought some...maybe when my husband was still alive.