I got this email a few years ago from FraP, and since then I never used margarine anymore. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I’m just being cautious

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the
turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a
payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this
product to get their money back. Originally it was a white substance with no
food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use
in place of butter. How do you like that?

DO YOU KNOW.. the difference between margarine and butter?
Read on to the end… It gets very interesting!

€Both have the same amount of calories.
€Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams.
€Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% compared to
eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical
Study.
€Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other
foods.
€Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few only because
they are added!
€Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of
other foods.
€Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for
less than 100 years.

And now, for Margarine..

€Very high in trans fatty acids.
€Triple risk of coronary heart disease.
€Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and
lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
€Increases the risk of cancers up to five-fold.
€Lowers quality of breast milk.
€Decreases immune response.
€Decreases insulin response.
€Here is the most disturbing fact….THIS IS THE PART THAT IS VERY
INTERESTING!

€Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC…..!

This fact alone is enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and
anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing
the molecular structure of the substance).

You can try this yourself:

Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area.
Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things:

* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should
tell you something)

* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value;
nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny micro-organisms will not
find a home to grow.

Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and
spread that on your toast?

***********************************

Snopes.com clearly cites this as another hoax, here’s what they have to say about the circulating email:

Contrary to the claim, margarine was not invented as a turkey fattener. It was formulated in 1869 by Hippolyte Mège Mouriès of France in response to Napoleon III’s offering of a prize to whoever could succeed at producing a viable low-cost substitute for butter. Mège Mouriès’ concoction, which he dubbed oleomargarine, was achieved by adding salty water, milk, and margaric acid to softened beef fat. By the turn of the century, the beef fat in the original recipe had been replaced by vegetable oils.

But it’s still disturbing, right?

I tried to leave an open tub of margarine with sugar (the blended one that you find in the supermarket) in the dining table, and I was surprised! No fly or ant dared to ‘taste’ the sweet margarine.

How about you, would you still use margarine on your food?