On Jan 26, 10:01 am, (Doug Miller) wrote:
In article .com, wrote:
Absolute BS. Were you even an adult then, so you would remember?
Anyone alive during the late 60s, 70's can tell you that margarine was
marketed as being a healthier alternative to butter because it did not
contain saturated fat. And health "experts" were spouting the exact
same advice. And what exactly was the point to margarine at all, if
not that it was supposed to be healthier?

Cheaper. *Much* cheaper.

Actually, during the early part of the 70's, margarine was more
expensive than butter due to the incredibly volatile grain market at
the time (that's where they get the oils from). In your words, "Much"
more expensive. Yet it continued to sell well, due, in no small part,
to its perceived health benefits over butter. A restaurant that I
worked for at the time started buying a butter/margarine blend to save
money. Prior to that they were using pure margarine and flaunted it on
their menu as their effort to help their customers maintain a healthy
lifestyle. And yes, I was alive and a functional, adult-like member of
society at the time ;-)

I don't think you'll find a
same person arguing that it tasted better. And it was about the same
price. Huh?

I've been buying my own groceries for nearly thirty years, and butter and
margarine have *never* been "about the same price" during that time. A pound
of butter is, and has been, quite consistently about double the price of a
pound of margarine.

Not counting those periods when it cost less than butter. Granted,
it's usually the other way around, but it never lost it's allure, even
when people were paying more for it. Even today, the 'premium' spreads
(many of which are not called margarine anymore due to some
technicality) are very close to the price of butter - around $1.50/lb.

The dairy companies raised a huge hue and cry when margarine first came on the
market -- precisely because it *was* a lot cheaper than butter, and that is
the basis of its market success. If it had been "about the same price", it
would have represented no threat to dairy producers, and never gained much
market share, exactly because it doesn't taste nearly as good: if butter's the
same price, why buy margarine? It wasn't sold originally as a *healthy*
alternative to butter, it was sold as a *cheap* alternative to butter.

Once the price of the grains that went into it soared, the marketing
departments latched on to the 'healthy' thing. And they had the health
nuts to help them in that effort.

The best any margarine can claim is that it's supposed to
taste like butter, which of course isn't true.One of the worst offenders IMO is the brand "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter".
**I** sure as hell can believe it isn't butter, and as far as I'm concerned,
it's a pretty poor excuse for margarine, too. I'd been thinking about buying
some... until I had some at a friend's house. Yecch.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.