The J.H. Filbert company, based in Baltimore, Maryland, developed the product in 1979 as a low-cost alternative to butter for the food service industry. The name originated from a comment by the husband of a company secretary as he sampled the product and it was first marketed to retail consumers in 1981.

For its Original Spread, the margarine's marketers praise it for having “70% less saturated fat than butter.” That's true, but each 1-tablespoon serving of “I Can't Believe It's Not Butter” still contains 2 grams of artery-damaging saturated fat.

Ingredients. Purified Water, Soybean Oil, Palm and Palm Kernel Oil, Salt, Lecithin (Soy), Natural Flavor, Vinegar, Vitamin A Palmitate, BETA Carotene (Color).

Margarine is a lasting impact of diet culture's fear of fats, Sharp says. It's not necessarily healthier for you, even if you really “can't believe it's not butter.” “When we created margarine, we created trans fats, so a lot of the original stick margarines contain trans fats,” Sharp says.

Butter is the dairy product made from churning milk or cream. The churning process separates the butterfat (the solids) from the buttermilk (the liquid). The butter we most often buy is made from cow's milk, although other varieties - made from the milk of sheep, goat, yak, or buffalo - are also available.

10 Highest-Quality Butter Brands, According to a Dietitian

• Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Butter With Avocado Oil.
• Churn Butter.
• Organic Valley Butter.
• 4th & Heart Ghee.
• Horizon Organic Butter.
• Maple Hill Salted Butter.
• Meyenberg Goat Milk Butter.
• Lactose-Free Green Valley Butter.

Grass-Fed Bottom Line: If You Have to Eat Butter, Choose Grass-Fed “Grass-fed butter has the nutritional edge in that it offers more heart-healthy nutrients than regular butter in a less-processed product than margarine,” Malkani says.

Real butter contains at least 80% milkfat, 18% water and 2% solids (mainly protein and salt). Clarified butter (also called drawn butter) is prepared by slowly melting regular butter to evaporate most of the water and separate the milk solids from the fat.

Artificial butter flavoring is a flavoring used to give a food the taste and smell of butter. It may contain diacetyl, acetylpropionyl, or acetoin, three natural compounds in butter that contribute to its characteristic taste and smell.

What is Butter? Butter is a dairy product made by churning either fresh fermented cream or milk. It consists of butterfat, milk proteins, and water.

Bottom Line: If You Have to Eat Butter, Choose Grass-Fed “Grass-fed butter has the nutritional edge in that it offers more heart-healthy nutrients than regular butter in a less-processed product than margarine,” Malkani says. You can typically find grass-fed butter at the grocery store or natural foods market.

Butter contains vitamin D, a nutrient that is vital for bone growth and development. It also has calcium, which is essential for bone strength. Calcium also helps prevent diseases such as osteoporosis, a condition that makes bones weak and fragile. It can help make your skin healthier.

Khosrova traces butter's beginning back to ancient Africa, in 8000 B.C., when a herder making a journey with a sheepskin container of milk strapped to the back of one of his sheep found that the warm sheep's milk, jostled in travel, had curdled into something remarkably tasty.

Water, Soybean Oil, Salt, Sweet Cream Buttermilk, Xanthan Gum, Soy Lecithin, Polysorbate 60, Lactic Acid, Potassium Sorbate And Calcium Disodium EDTA (Used To Protect Quality), Natural And Artificial Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate Beta Carotene (Color).

The first butters came from the milk not of cows, but of other domesticated animals, like yak, sheep and goats, Khosrova maintains.

The 10 Best Vegan Butters

• Milkadamia Salted Buttery Spread.
• Forager Project Buttery Spread.
• Wayfare Foods Dairy-Free Salted, Whipped Butter.
• Wildbrine European-Style Cultured Cashew Butter.
• Om Sweet Home Non-Dairy Butter Alternative.
• 6 & 7.
• Melt Organic Butter.
• Miyoko's European-Style Cultured Vegan Butter.