My parents told me about this. The margarine’s natural color is white so they put some food coloring in and you mixed it up before you opened the bag to make it look more like butter.(?)
This was a result of the lobbying efforts of the dairy industry. Butter gets its traditional yellowish colour from the carotene in grass, while corn fed cows produce a very pale butter. They argued it was OK for them to tint it more yellow, but not for the margerine makers to do that with their almost white product. In fact, they wanted margerine dyed pink, brown or even black to prevent margerine from being passed off as butter. Courts eventually ruled they couldn't be forced to adulterate their product, but wouldn't allow them to dye it yellow either. Hence the dye capsules workaround. The consumer did their cosmetic work for them. This lasted till 1967 in the States and coloured margerine only became legal in Quebec, with their powerful dairy lobby, in 2008.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/25638/surprisingly-interesting-history-margarine https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2014/08/13/the-butter-wars-when-margarine-was-pink/
Margarine is Crisco. It is disgusting, dangerous, and has been banned from our house for over 20 years. It is the main reason why you see older people with arteries clogged in their neck.
Not exactly. Crisco is a shortening, not something one would normally spread on bread. It is 100% fat and tasteless, whereas margerine, like butter, is about 80% fat and also contains water and milk solids. In recent years, margerine was considered the "healthier" alternative to butter because it contained less saturated fats and no cholesterol, though that pendulum has now swung back in butter's favour. At the end of the day, either product should be used as sparingly as possible.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/25638/surprisingly-interesting-history-margarine
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2014/08/13/the-butter-wars-when-margarine-was-pink/