If you have no problems with cholesterol levels, butter is safe to consume, as many people prefer the flavour. However, butter is not only unhealthier than margarine because of its high cholesterol content.

Butter consists of 50% saturated fatty acids, which, as most people now know, are unhealthy. When children put butter on their bread instead of margarine, they eat twice the recommended maximum amount of saturated fatty acids. Butter is a versatile fat in the diet. You spread butter on bread and use it for cooking and baking. This is how a lot of unhealthy fatty acids get into our bodies very quickly.

Replacing butter with margarine is fortunately quite easy. Even if your family is used to the taste of butter, you can use high-quality vegetable margarine that is similar in flavour to butter and make the transition gradually. Simply replacing the butter on your bread with margarine will keep up to 3kg of unhealthy fat out of your body per year.

A good margarine contains less than 20% saturated fatty acids and also important essential fats such as alanine and omega 6. Alanine is found in rapeseed oil, soya, linseed and walnuts and helps to keep the heart, joints and the entire immune system healthy.

The best way to start gradually switching from butter to margarine is to use margarine when cooking and baking. Most types of margarine, except extremely low-fat margarine, hardly change the flavour perceptibly. As your taste buds become accustomed to the flavour of margarine, you can gradually add margarine to your bread.