What's That Rash? Butter vs margarine: what's better for you?
Oct 7, 2025
21:00
The battle between butter and margarine has been happening since margarine was invented in the 19th century.
So have we figured out which one is better for your health – butter with its high saturated fat content, or margarine which is an ultra-processed food?
Norman and Tegan unpack the winding history of this debate from its inception to the present day.
References:
- The Butter Wars: When Margarine Was Pink – National Geographic
- The Butter-Margarine Controversy - 1946
- What the margarine vs butter argument says about nutrition – University of Melbourne
- Dietary fats - Healthdirect
- What’s better, butter or margarine? - Diabetes Australia
- Serum cholesterol response to replacing butter with a new trans-free margarine in hypercholesterolemic subjects
- Individual Cholesterol Variation in Response to a Margarine- or Butter-Based Diet: A Study in Families
- Effects of margarines and butter consumption on lipid profiles, inflammation markers and lipid transfer to HDL particles in free-living subjects with the metabolic syndrome
- BMI modifies the effect of dietary fat on atherogenic lipids: a randomized clinical trial
- From margarine to butter: predictors of changing bread spread in an 11-year population follow-up
- Association between dairy intake and multiple health outcomes: a scoping review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses | European Journal of Clinical Nutrition
- Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses on Consumption of Different Food Groups and Risk of All-cause Mortality - ScienceDirect
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You can listen to more episodes of the What’s That Rash? podcast with presenters Norman Swan and Tegan Taylor on the ABC Listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. We answer your questions on everything from TikTok wellness trends to wonder drugs and diet myths.