Bakers Weigh Taste And Fat When Choosing Butter Or Margarine

On your mark, get set, bake holiday cookies.

Flour that cutting board. Beat those eggs. Pull those cutters from the box in the garage.

But wait - you say you're stuck in the butter and margarine aisle?

Picking the proper baking fat these days is like cruising the cereals: The choices are overwhelming.

"There's such a huge proliferation of margarines and spreads and light and whipped products, combos of butter and margarine, that consumers are really confused," says Sally Peters, director of the Pillsbury Co.'s consumer food and publications center.

Even experts confused

Even Pillsbury has been fooled, Peters says. During a recent recipe test, home economists were puzzled by the poor performance of a margarine.

They hadn't realized the manufacturer had converted the product to a spread, meaning it had less fat and more water than a regular margarine.

"That affects texture," Peters says.

Adding to consumer confusion: Margarine - considered the healthier alternative to butter - has been attacked in recent studies as a source of trans fatty acids, which may contribute to heart disease.

And for that final whammy, there's guilt. For many, the holidays are a time for making merry, for primping, not skimping. Substitute for butter? What would Mother or Grandmother say?

"We look at (holiday cookies) for message and symbol," says Gail Frank, a Los Alamitos-based spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

"To stop and think about the fat content is like, `Oh no! Are people going to tell us we can't have our cookies?"'

Both camps have their fans; there are the purists who swear by butter, particularly for its performance and taste. And there are the health-conscious who warn against the dangers of fat, particularly saturated fat found in butter.

How do they help you? Listen to their bottom lines. Think about performance and health.

Baking comparison

If your choice is based on performance, butter and margarine can be used interchangeably in cookie baking, as a general rule of thumb. The exception might be for butter or spritz cookies, where only a few ingredients are used, and butter is relied upon for its flavor.

"With Christmas cookies, stick with the classics. You can't make shortbread without butter," says baking expert and butter fan Nick Malgieri, author of "How to Bake" (Harper Collins, $35).

Butter also makes for a better dough consistency, especially for cookies that need to be rolled out and cut into shapes.

Margarine tends to be softer, which can make it harder to manage, says Lydia Botham, director of the test kitchen and consumer affairs for Land O' Lakes.

Yet some prefer margarine precisely for its softness; when it comes to mixing, a softer dough can be easier on the hands and shoulders of the baker.

Check the oil content

In most recipes calling for butter or margarine, it's best to use a full-fat margarine, or one that is 80 percent oil. The oil in the margarine provides the desired browning and texture; when the oil is reduced, the cookie changes, says Sue Taylor, spokeswoman for the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers.

"Focus on the percentage of oil on the lower part of the package," Taylor says. She cautions against baking with any spread consisting of less than 60 percent oil.

Check the package, too, for recommended uses; some packages also feature toll-free numbers for consumers who have questions. Typically, callers receive recipes developed specifically for the reduced-oil spreads.

If your choice is based on health, there is only one choice: margarine.

"If I'm making a cookie and have to use a stick shortening, I'm going to choose margarine. That's health," says Alicia Moag-Stahlberg, a nutritionist with Northwestern University Medical School.

The reason: saturated fat and cholesterol. While butter and margarine have the same amount of fat, it's the saturated fat that makes butter the bad guy. Butter has more than three times as much saturated fat as margarine.

"People will debate the taste issue. People will say they can taste the difference. But you want to use the least amount of fat possible," says Moag-Stahlberg, who has studied fats.

No one disagrees that Americans eat too much fat. The American Dietetic Association recommends the American diet should consist of less than 30 percent fat; it's about 34 percent fat.

While the demand for low-fat and nonfat products is high, a Department of Agriculture index measuring how closely Americans follow the food pyramid showed that 80 percent of the respondents eat more than the recommended amounts of total fat and saturated fat.

Concerns about margarine

Some believe a deprivation backlash is under way - people are tired of eating lightly and want good old-fashioned foods, such as butter.

But an uproar over margarine - brought about by studies last year that suggested that it could be as harmful as butter - has some shunning margarine for butter. Falling prices have boosted butter sales as well.

The issue with margarine is trans fatty acids, found in foods made with hydrogenated oils. While there is much disagreement over the dangers of trans fat, several well-publicized studies have shown that, like saturated fat, it raises blood cholesterol.

"You should think about trans fat as you do saturated fat and try to reduce your intake," says Margo Wootan, a scientist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is pushing for trans-fat content to be listed on food labels.

(Copyright, 1995, Orange County Register. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.)