ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the history of margarine and its rivalry with butter, and the continual reengineering of margarine across the few eras of nutritionism in response to changing nutritional fears and fetishes. It traces the transformation of the public profile and nutritional facade of margarine from a cheap imitation of butter in the era of quantifying nutritionism, to a "hyperreal" spread boasting a superior fatty acid profile in the good-and-bad era, and then to a cholesterol-lowering and omega-3-enriched functional food in the functional era. The chapter examines the research and the debate over trans-fats since the 1960s, and how the discourse of good and bad fats continues to obscure the underlying ingredients and processing quality of margarine and other spreads. The pharmaceutical company Pitman-Moore released the first polyunsaturated-rich margarine in 1958, called Emdee, and initially marketed it as a medicinal product.
