The Four Stages of Panic

The original margarine was like a kind of, it was beef tallow. It came out of this challenge that the French Emperor Napoleon III in the mid-1800s had made. He wanted a butter-like substance that could travel easily with his soldiers. In 1874, states start passing laws mandatingMargarine be dyed unappealing colors such as pink or black. This puts the butter industry in just absolute panic. They have all these really useful newspaper articles saying that every measure must be taken from the dairy industry. And so they start working with local lawmakers to limit people's access to margarine.