20 products tested
“Ökotest” disappoints with margarine manufacturers: All products are contaminated
Margarine does not do well in the “Ökotest” test
© Getty Images
Margarine is considered a healthy alternative to butter. But is that really true? Often they are polluted with pollutants and then there is the problem with palm oil. Ökotest took a close look at 20 margarines.
Nothing beats butter, right? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that! The margarine has had a steep career. It was once considered poor people’s fat: Napoleon wanted to supply his troops with fat, which resulted in the “beurre artificiel”, i.e. artificial butter. It consisted of melted beef tallow mixed with milk and water. Today margarine is refined from vegetable oil and thus has an advantage over butter: the vegetable oils from which it is made are healthier than milk fat.
Ökotest has tested 20 vegetable margarines, but would only recommend those that are pollutant-free and produced with vegetable oil from sustainable cultivation. Very few are. All of them are contaminated with mineral oil hydrocarbons. Only two score with “good”: the Bellasan plant margarine from Aldi Nord and the K-Classic plant margarine from Kaufland (both 89 cents for 500 grams). Twelve spreadable fats are in the midfield, six fail with “insufficient” or “insufficient”.
The problem with the palm oil
Palm oil plays a central role in production, which makes it spreadable, unlike the tropical fats coconut oil and shea butter, which solidify at room temperature. Palm oil is problematic in that for the cultivation of the oil palm on a large scale, tropical forests are cut down or destroyed by slash and burn. This destroys valuable habitats and releases a great deal of climate-damaging carbon dioxide. On the other hand, a lot of palm oil can be extracted from a small area.
However, the experts at Ökotest would like manufacturers to purchase palm oil only from sustainable sources. Unfortunately, there is a damper here too: only nine out of 15 brands that use palm oil in their margarines contain certified palm oil.