Margarine is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was originally named oleomargarine from Latin for oleum (olive oil) and Greek margarite ("pearl", indicating luster). The name was later shortened to margarine, or sometimes oleo (particularly in the Deep South region of the United States). Margarine consists of a water-in-fat emulsion, with tiny droplets of water dispersed uniformly throughout a fat phase in a stable solid form. While butter is made by concentrating the butterfat of milk through centrifugation, modern margarine is made through a more intensive processing of refined vegetable oil and water. Margarine can be used as an ingredient in other food products, such as pastries, doughnuts, cakes, biscuits and cookies.
History
Invention and early distribution
French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul in 1813 discovered margaric acid. Scientists at the time regarded margaric acid, like oleic acid and stearic acid, as one of the three fatty acids that, in combination, form most animal fats. In 1853, the German structural chemist Wilhelm Heinrich Heintz analyzed margaric acid as simply a combination of stearic acid and the previously unknown palmitic acid. After the French Emperor Napoleon III issued a challenge to create a butter-substitute from beef tallow for the armed forces and lower classes, Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès invented margarine in 1869. Mège-Mouriès patented the product, which he named "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, which subsequently became part of Unilever. In the same year a German pharmacist, Benedict Klein from Cologne, founded the first margarine factory in Germany, producing the brands Overstolz and Botteram.
The principal raw material in the original formulation of margarine was beef fat. In 1871, Henry W. Bradley of Binghamton, New York, received US Patent 110626 for a process of creating margarine that combined vegetable oils (primarily cottonseed oil) with animal fats. In 1874, the first commercial cargo arrived in the UK. By the late-19th century, some 37 companies were manufacturing margarine in the US, in opposition to the butter industry, which protested and lobbied for government intervention, eventually leading to the 1886 Margarine Act imposing prohibitive taxes and fees against margarine manufacturers. Shortages in beef fat supply, combined with advances by 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 from a combination of animal fats and hardened and unhardened vegetable oils. The Great Depression, followed by rationing in the United States and in the United Kingdom, among other countries, during World War II, led to a reduction in supply of animal fat and butter, and, by 1945, "original" margarine had almost completely disappeared from the market. In the United States, problems with supply, coupled with changes in legislation, caused margarine manufacturers to switch almost completely to vegetable oils and fats by 1950, spurring new product development.
Color debate
Carotene in the milk of grass-fed cows gives butter produced from such milk a slightly yellow color. However, being a synthetic product, margarine has a white color resembling lard, which many people found unappetizing. Around the late 1880s, manufacturers began coloring margarine yellow to improve sales. Dairy firms, especially in Wisconsin, became alarmed at the potential threat to their business, and succeeded in getting legislation passed to prohibit the coloring of the stark white margarine by 1902. In response, margarine companies distributed margarine together with a packet of yellow food coloring. The product was placed in a bowl and the coloring mixed in manually, taking some time and effort, especially if the mixing needed to be done by hand—typically the case at the time since domestic electric mixers were rarely used before the 1920s. It was therefore not unusual for the final product to be served as a light and dark yellow, or even white, striped product. During World War II, butter and margarine were both in short supply and subject to rationing in the United States, but butter required more points, causing margarine to gain popularity. In 1951, the W. E. Dennison Company received US Patent 2553513 for a method to place a capsule of yellow dye inside a plastic package of margarine. After purchase, the capsule was broken by pressing on the outside of the package, and the package was kneaded to distribute the dye. The artificial coloring laws began being repealed around 1955, and margarine could once again be sold colored like butter in most states. The final hold out was Wisconsin, which finally repealed its restrictions in 1967.
Coal butter Around the 1930s and 1940s, Arthur Imhausen developed and implemented an industrial process in Germany for producing edible fats by oxidizing synthetic paraffin wax made from coal. The products were fractionally distilled and the edible fats were obtained from the C9–C16 fraction which were reacted with glycerol such as that synthesized from propylene. Margarine made from them was found to be nutritious and of agreeable taste, and it was incorporated into diets contributing as much as 700 calories per day. The process required at least 60 kilograms of coal per kilogram of synthetic butter. That industrial process was discontinued after WWII due to its inefficiency.
Post-WWII During the Second World War and immediate post-war years amid rationing in the United Kingdom, only two types of margarine were available: a premium brand and a budget brand with whale oil being used in its manufacture. With the end of rationing in 1955, the market was opened to the forces of supply and demand, and brand marketing became prevalent. The competition among the major producers was given further impetus with the beginning of commercial television advertising in 1955 and, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, competing companies vied to produce the margarine that tasted most like butter.
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