Butter or Margarine? Is There a Healthy Butter Substitute?

Which should I buy, butter or margarine or spread?

A friend recently asked me which is a healthier choice: whipped butter or a buttery spread. Having a master’s degree in nutrition, I get a lot of nutrition questions, but I hadn’t been asked this one before.

Without looking at the labels, I really couldn’t give her a good answer, so I hit the supermarket to compare products. I found several shelves stocked with butter and the various spreads you can use in its place. I decided to go all out and basically analyze the whole category. So if you’re wondering how to make sense of so many spreads, here’s help.

—Nicci Micco, M.S., Editor-at-Large for EatingWell

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