Please settle a squabble with a friend. Isn stick margarine better for us than butter?
Well, I hope you haven’t invested too much into your bet, because your friend has just won . . . but neither choice is a very good one for our health. The culprit in margarine is the high level of trans fatty acids, which have been found to increase LDL cholesterol (the bad form) and decrease HDL cholesterol (the good form). While the saturated fat in butter raises LDL, it does not negatively affect HDL. Of course, there are much healthier choices such as using olive oil as a substitute or to look for margarines that are low in saturated fat and contain no trans fatty acids. According to information from the FDA, removing all TFAs from margarine would prevent approximately 7,000 heart attacks each year.
