+26 Natural products like butter are better for you than the synthetic products the 'heart foundation' suggests people ingest - like medium fat spread & margarine, amirite?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

In many cases, this is probably true. Who the hell actually knows what shit they put in there?

by Anonymous 12 years ago

I can't stand the whole "natural is better than synthetic, no questions asked" attitude. That's. Not. True.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

More often than not, natural products are better. For example, thye hydrogenated vegetable oil to make it spreadable margarine. THen they found out veg oil is healthier for you because it's unsaturated and the hydrogenation made it saturated, and the molecular structure made it even worse than regular butter. However, a lot of synthetic things are also better. Olestra for example. It's exactly like fat, but you taste it and feel it, but you can't absorb it. It's 0 calorie fat that just passes out and is biologically impossible to have any more ill effect than fibre.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Well I don't know the whole deal on whether margarine or butter are better for you; however I do know that butter is made of saturated fat and that allows it to stay solid at room temperature (unlike olive oil). Unfortunately, this means that when the fat is mobilized in your bloodstream it will stick to the sides of your arteries. Fat will build up for years, and since according to Poiseuille's law, rate of flow is proportional to the radius to a power of 4. This means that if the diameter of your arteries decreases by 1/2 the flow rate will decrease //sixteen times// (assuming pressure and viscosity remains constant). This means that your heart has to work much harder, which increases your risk of a heart attack. On the other hand, margarine is composed primarily of unsaturated fats, which is why margarine is so much softer (although sometimes some saturated fats are added to it to make it solid at room temp.) . Unsaturated fats have a at least one double bond which make their carbon chain bent, which prevents them from stacking. Because of this unsaturated fat is less likely to stick to your arteries, thus the "heart foundation [sic]" supports it.

by Anonymous 12 years ago