Margarine

In 1869, when butter was in short supply in France, a prize was offered to whoever could come up with an attractive substitute. M. Hippolyte Mege took first place by mixing lard and the drippings from meat packing, flavoring them with a yogurt-like milk preparation and coloring them so that they had at least some resemblance to fine french butter. Nobody was fooled, but the price was right and it became a marketable item.

During WW11 when food was rationed and butter fat was hard to come by, margarine got another boost and became widely known to most Americans. The lard-like white blocks of margarine were sold along with a packet of yellow dye which was used to make it look like butter.

By this time, more inexpensive methods for extracting vegetable oils had been developed and were even less costly than the fats obtained from the meat industry. It was at this point that the process of "hydrogenating" oil (bubbling hydrogen through it) was developed.

Once a vegetable oil has been "hydrogenated", a new fat has been created. Since these artificially hydrogenated vegetable fats are a recent addition to the diet of man, and since the body has no experience with them, it seems reasonable to wonder if it has the capacity to deal with this Synthetic food. *It is interesting note that in the Southeastern states, the region where margarine consumption is highest in relation to population, there is an area where incidence of heart attacks is SO HIGH it has been termed "an enigma". It seems increasingly likely that eating margarine, instead of preventing heart attacks, actually accelerates the process which causes them.

Calories and Carbs

A Calorie is a measure of heat produced when a substance is burned (or oxidized). One gram of carbohydrate will produce about 4 calories. A gram of fat will produce about 9. A gram of protein will also produce about 4 calories.

How many calories do we need? Easy, as many as we use...or if we are overweight, we need a few less than we use. The remainder of calories needed when not enough are consumed will be supplied by the use of fat stores.

Counting calories is often a waste of time. A person can usually judge his caloric needs by the signals his body provides. As long as the calorie-rich carb is accompanied with other nutrients that are normally combined with it in nature (protein, fat, vitamins and minerals) then the sense of hunger becomes a reliable index of how much you should eat! It is when empty calories - carbs that have been separated from other components of food - are taken alone that the problem of EXCESS occurs.
However carbs are not the only supply of calories and are not the only food ingredient that can be empty and non-nutritional.