07 March 2007

No Butter?

“We’ve gone back and replaced all of the nice, good butter with supposedly trans fat-free margarine,” said Rick Doyle, the Schwartz regional manager. “The hardest one for us was the croissant. We replaced butter with palm oil. From my perspective it’s not a croissant any more. It’s lost all its lamination and flavor.”

As my wife can tell you, I am a pretty passionate guy when it comes to croissants.

3 comments:

Panda said...

Hmm. I thought that butter was better for you than margarine, because in margarine they actually have to alter the configuration of the carbons and hydrogens in the plant oil to make it solid at room temp.

Today I learned that butter was invented by a French guy because there had been a nasty cattle plague that had destroyed the butter industry in Europe. It was originally made of animal products, but then in the 20s they found out how to make it with only vegetable oil (supposedly healthier).
But it's the act of causing the vegetable oil to become solid (partial hydrogenation) that creates most trans fats in our diet. In addition, margarine has a bunch of chemicals added to it to make it more spreadable/creamy.

I think what I am going to do is not eat margarine, and then cut back on the butter. I typically don't care about how much fat something has, but I hadn't considered until today the huge amounts of toxins that have accumulated in the fat used to make butter. (Toxins accumulate in the fat of animals). Something to consider if you eat lots of meat like I do.
See http://www.naturodoc.com/library/nutrition/margbutt.htm

Panda said...

Sorry - I meant that "margarine was invented" by the French guy.

Panda said...

Sorry the link didn't come out well.

Please see this link.