Butter v. Margarine

Is butter superior to margarine? For years, the warring champions of butter and margarine (made from vegetable fat --mostly soybean and cottonseed oil) have been smearing each other, despite laboratory tests on rats and mice that showed no difference in food value. In 1946, three Chicago physicians* accepted a grant from the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers to experiment with human beings.

The doctors picked two orphan asylums where diets could be strictly controlled. In one institution, 160 children were given only margarine--for bread, on vegetables and in pastry and frying. In another institution, of 107 children, butter was used.

Last week the doctors reported the results of the two-year test in the Journal of the American Medical Association. There was no real difference between the two groups of children--in height, weight, or hemoglobin and red cell count. General health seemed to favor the margarine boys & girls, but the doctors cautiously credited "other variables." Their conclusion : "Whether the greater part of the fat of the diet is derived from vegetable or animal sources has no effect on growth and health. .. . Margarine is a good source of table fat in growing children. . . ."

* Drs. Harry Leichenger and George Eisenberg of the department of pediatrics, University of Illinois College of Medicine, and Dr. Anton J. Carlson, of the University of Chicago.

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