what’s the deal with vegetable oil vs. butter? Is butter actually healthier?

Question

I saw a video talking about how nature will reject a block of margarine, like bugs and stuff won’t eat it. But if you put a stick of butter out it will be eaten in hours. Is that just an unsubstantiated internet claim for controversy sake, or is that really the case?

Later, I read somewhere that recent studies found regular users of butter experienced reduced levels of cancer compared to regular users of vegetable oil. I don’t have these studies, but I’d also like to know if that’s a truthful claim or not as well. Thanks.

In: Other

Answer 1

Not too long ago butter was seen as the ‘unhealthy’ choice, mainly because the type of fat it contains is high in cholesterol and clogs the arteries over time if consumed excessively. Here enters the “healthy” alternative, margarine.

Margarine is a low cholesterol spread similar to butter and cheap to produce, and was marketed and seen as the healthy alternative to butter. So what’s this new trend with people who avoid seed / vegetable oils then, aren’t they considered healthy because of low cholesterol??

The problem lies in the fact that vegetable and seed oils (canola, vegetable, palm etc.) are very, very, very far from being “butter” in their natural state. The oil has to be processed many times, bleached, cooked and re-cooked over and over again to turn it into a scentless, buttery paste. Every time the oil is cooked it breaks down into carcinogenic polymeric molecules similar to plastic. The long-term effects of eating plastic and carcinogenic materials are only now starting to show itself, and the consensus has returned to butter being the healthier alternative, because it’s much easier to control your cholesterol than it is to gamble on eating large amounts of carcinogens.

Edit: [here’s a good image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FxnVwnfWIAUfqcO?format=jpg&name=small) of the whole process. Note that ‘Degum’, and ‘Deodorize’ are forms of cooking, and ‘Refining’ is a chemical additive. Everything goes through a process to be made, but this is unreal for producing food. Usually these processes make things like soap or cleaning chemicals that aren’t supposed to be eaten. You will also cook the oil at home on top of all of this.