How are margarine and solid vegetable fats made? Are they bad for health?

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I’m from a country where margarine and solid vegetable fats (shortening and vegetable ghee) are widely produced and consumed, children used to eat slices of bread with margarine outside and TV advertorials were bombarded with margarine commercials.

It’s said that there are only one molecule of difference between plastic and margarine, and no insects won’t settle on margarine when a piece of it are left outside, and solid vegetable fats are harmful for health.

What’s the truth about margarine and solid vegetable fats and the whole margarine vs. butter battle? Are the claims I wrote in the previous paragraph (plastic and no insects) any true? Are solid vegetable fats bad for health?

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16 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

As other have said, it is made by reacting the molecules with hydrogen to produce saturated fats. If it’s not fully hydrogenated, then it’s likely going to be a trans fat. [Both saturated fats and trans fats are bad for you](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2016/07/05/different-dietary-fat-different-risk-of-mortality/). As a rule of thumb, fats that are liquid at room temperature are healthier than the ones that are solid.

The difference between plastics and margarine are huge. A plastic is many individual molecules linked together. They may be similar to fats, or they may be very different. It’s really two different classes of molecules. Apples vs Celery. I guess you could say that it’s “one molecule different,” but since we’re talking about molecules, you’ve literally changed to a different molecule. Vitamin C is one molecule different from cyanide.

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