On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:31:52 -0800, "# Fred #"
wrote:

Or how about some of the other bandwagons that the scientific/political
community jumped on, only to be proven wrong? Remember how in the
70s they told us that because of fat, eating butter was going to kill
us? So, they recommended replacing it with margarine, made out of
transfats. Now, according to current thinking, it turns out the
margarine was far worse. So bad, in fact, that NYC just past a law
barring it from all restaurants.


Somewhere I've read margarine was invented, before it was placed on our
dinner tables, for the consumption by hogs. Great stuff, cheap, a profit
maker, and fatten the hogs in record time for market. But the farmers
noticed the hogs were dying off in great numbers so it was banned. So what
did they do with all that surplus margarine? Some entrepreneur noticed with
a little coloring and flavoring added, it could pass for butter substitute.
How it was advertised as heather than butter I never know but I guess in
those days we thought cigarettes were cool too.


I was under the impression that margerine came into being mostly
because during WWII, for reasons beyond my understanding, butter
and other dairy products were rationed. Maybe that was oleo,
though.