Margarine

Margarine is a generic term for different types of fats used to replace butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil.

The spread was originally called oleomargarine from the Latin for oleum (olive oil) and Greek margarite (pearl indicating shine). The name was later shortened to margarine. Margarine can be used as an ingredient in other food products, such as cakes, donuts, and cookies.

History

Invention and early distribution

Margarine has a long, sometimes confusing history. Its name originates from the discovery of "margaric acid", made by Michel Eugène Chevreul in 1813. Scientists of the time considered that margaric acid, like oleic acid and stearic acid, was one of the three acids. fatty foods that, combined, form the majority of animal fats. In 1853, the German structural chemist Wilhelm Heinrich Heintz analyzed margaric acid and discovered that it was nothing more than a simple combination of stearic acid and the previously unknown palmitic acid.

In the 1860s, Emperor Napoleon III of France offered a reward to anyone who could successfully make a substitute for expensive and difficult-to-preserve butter for the lower social classes and the armed forces: a "fatty body like butter, but of a lower price, suitable for being preserved for a long time without being altered, maintaining its nutritional value."

The chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès developed margarine in the 1860s. He made a white emulsion resulting from fractionated beef fat, milk and water, called "oleomargarine" (which he later shortened to margarine, from the Greek μάργαρον, /margaron/, 'pearl white' and from the name polyalcohol-glycerin). It was prepared by extracting the liquid portion under pressure and then allowing it to solidify. When combined with butyrin and water it produces a butter substitute of similar flavor. The patent was presented in 1872 and the marketing of margarine developed later. Mège-Mouriès patented the product, which he called oleomargarine, and expanded his initial manufacturing operation from France, but had little commercial success. In 1871, he sold the patent to the Dutch company Jurgens, now part of Unilever. That same year, a German pharmacist, Benedict Klein, from Cologne, founded Germany's first margarine factory, under the brands Overstolz and Botteram.

The main raw material in the original formulation of margarine was beef fat. In 1871, Henry W. Bradley of Binghamton, New York, received USPTO Patent No. 110626 for a process of creating margarine that combined vegetable oils (mainly cottonseed oil) with animal fats. In 1874, the first commercial shipment arrived in the United Kingdom. By the end of the 19th century, some 37 companies were manufacturing margarine in opposition to the butter industry, which protested and lobbied for government intervention, eventually leading to the Margarine Act of 1886, which imposed punitive taxes on manufacturers. margarine manufacturers.

The short supply of beef fat, combined with the advances of James F. Boyce and Paul Sabatier in the hydrogenation of plant materials, soon accelerated the use of Bradley's method, and between 1900 and 1920 commercial oleomargarine was produced at from a combination of animal fats and hardened and unhardened vegetable oils. The Great Depression, followed by rationing in the United States and the United Kingdom, among other countries, during World War II, caused a reduction in the supply of animal fat and butter and, in 1945, the "original" margarine; had almost completely disappeared from the market. In the United States, supply problems, coupled with changes in legislation, caused manufacturers to switch almost entirely to vegetable oils and fats by 1950, and the industry was poised for an era of product development.

Debate about color

While the butter the cows produced had a slightly yellow color, the margarine had a white color, making margarine more like lard, which many people found unappetizing. Towards the end of the 1880s, manufacturers began coloring margarine yellow to improve sales.

Dairy companies, especially those in Wisconsin, were alarmed by the possible threat to their business and, in 1902, they managed to pass a law that prohibited dyeing the product raw white. In response, margarine companies distributed margarine along with a packet of yellow food coloring. The product was placed in a bowl and the coloring was mixed manually. This required some time and effort, especially if mixing had to be done by hand, as was often the case at the time, since household electric mixers were rarely used before the 1920s. Therefore, it was not unusual for the product to final served with light and dark yellow stripes, or even white. During World War II there was a butter shortage in the United States and margarine became popular. In 1951, the W. E. Dennison Company received USPTO Patent No. 2553513 for a method of placing a capsule of yellow food coloring inside a plastic container. of margarine. After purchase, the capsule was broken by pressing the outside of the container, and then the container was kneaded to distribute the dye. Around 1955, the artificial coloring laws were repealed, and margarine could once again be sold colored like butter.

Charcoal butter

Around the 1930s and 1940s, Arthur Imhausen developed and implemented in Germany an industrial process to produce edible fats by oxidation of synthetic paraffin wax obtained from coal. The products were fractional distillation and the edible fats were obtained from the fraction C
9-C
16 that were reacted with glycerol such as that synthesized from propylene. It was found that the margarine made from them was nutritious and pleasant in flavor, and was It was incorporated into diets, providing up to 700 calories a day. The process required at least 60 kg of charcoal per kg of synthetic butter. This industrial process was interrupted after World War II due to its inefficiency.

After World War II

During rationing in the United Kingdom during the Second World War and the immediate post-war years, there were only two types of margarine available: a premium brand and a budget brand that used whale oil to make. With the end of rationing in 1955, the market opened to the forces of supply and demand, and brand marketing became predominant. Competition between major producers received a new boost with the beginning of commercial advertising in television in 1955, and throughout the 1950s and 1960s, competing companies vied with each other to produce the margarine that tasted most like butter.

Spreads

In the mid-1960s, the introduction in Scandinavia of two mixtures of butter oil and lower fat vegetable oils, called Lätt & Lagom and Bregott, clouded the question of what should be called margarine and started the debate that led to the introduction of the term spreadable. In 1978, an 80% fat product called crown, made by churning a mixture of dairy cream and vegetable oils, was introduced in Europe, and in 1982, the Milk Marketing Board introduced it in the United Kingdom. a mixture of cream and vegetable oils called clover. The vegetable oil and cream spread "I can't believe it's not butter! was introduced in the United States in 1981, and in the United Kingdom and Canada in 1991.

In the 21st century, margarine spreads underwent many advances to improve their consumer appeal. Most brands phased out the use of hydrogenated oil and went trans fat-free. Many brands launched refrigerator-friendly spreadable margarines that only contain one-third the fat and calories of traditional spreadable margarines. Other varieties of spreads include those that contain added Omega-3 fatty acids, little or no salt, added plant sterols (supposedly lower blood cholesterol), olive oil, or certified vegan oils. At the beginning of the 21st century, manufacturers offered margarines in squeeze plastic bottles for easy dispensing and offered pink margarine as a novelty.

News

Since the invention of Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, margarine manufacturers have introduced many changes. Modern margarine can be made from a wide variety of animal or vegetable fats and is usually mixed with skim milk, salt, and emulsifiers.

Today we can find various margarines, according to their uses we can classify them into: Margarines for the table, for smoothies or baking, for puff pastries. Table Margarine is the one we use to spread on bread, it has an intense flavor and is generally very soft which allows it to be easily handled (it is also known as soft type margarine). Shake or Baking Margarine is that which is used in the gastronomic industry, it has less available water which makes it easier to work with in a technique such as sifting (it is not the same in properties as butter as it delivers less crunchy and less flavourful) is suitable for smoothies and dry doughs. Puff Pastry Margarine is that which is used only to make leafy doughs such as Danish. This margarine is poor in flavor and has a higher smoke point. Thanks to this characteristic, it resists the high temperatures of baking, leaving the expected flaky texture.

In most countries margarine cannot be sold as butter, as there are laws that prohibit this. On the other hand, in other countries margarine is sold like that. Particularly in Venezuela there is the phenomenon of popularly knowing it as butter given its superior popularity over butter itself due to its lower price, or as Mavesa by metonymy; However, this last term is rarely used, giving preference to the first.

Manufacturing process

Did you mean: La margarina se fabrica mediante las siguientes etapas:

• refined
• Endurement
• Manufacture of margarine proper.

The raw material is selected, commonly vegetable oil.

Then the oil is refined.

Hardening consists of altering the melting point of the oil to obtain a specific solids curve. Hardening is achieved by hydrogenation, interesterification or fractionation. The most common is hydrogenation, in which the oil is partially or completely saturated with hydrogen, in an autoclave at high temperatures, pressures, and the presence of catalyst, until a certain iodine value and a certain solids curve are achieved.

Historically, a very widely used method to harden margarine oils was partial hydrogenation (that is, incorporating hydrogen into the oil, but not to saturation). Several decades ago it was detected that partial hydrogenation generated trans fatty acids in significant quantities and that these had negative effects on plasma cholesterol. The industry reacted and looked for alternative ways to harden oils that would minimize the amount of trans fatty acids in the product. It was observed that using controlled processes of hydrogenation (total), interesterification and fractionation it is possible to obtain table margarines with amounts of trans fatty acids less than 1%.

Nutritional aspects

The actions of interested campaigns, both for and against margarine, make it difficult to obtain objective information on the matter. In 1993 the WHO, in the conclusions of its study 'Fats and oils in human nutrition. FAO/WHO expert consultation determined that trans fats were slightly worse than saturated fats, but in any case, both should be avoided as much as possible in healthy diets, replacing them with oils and soft margarines (non-hydrogenated margarines, from canola oils).