Inflation is taking a toll on the grocery store, so substitutes are riding the wave and sometimes cost as much as the basics. The best example is butter and margarine, which are now worth the same or nearly the same price.
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“I call it ‘tide-flation’. When the price of a product rises, the price of substitutes rises at the same time”, launches Sylvain Charlebois.
The director of Dalhousie University’s Laboratory of Analytical Sciences in Agrifood recalls that margarine has always been “much cheaper” than butter since its appearance in 1960.
The price of margarine has increased by 53% in 2 years, according to Statistics Canada.
photo Yves Daoust
The price of this vegetable oil product has jumped 53% in 2 years, according to Statistics Canada data.
For the same period, the increase was 27% for the price of butter.
A container of 850 grams of Becel margarine at regular price retails today for $9.79, or $1.15/100 g.
Selection or Unnamed brand butter retails for $6.49 for a 454-gram piece, or $1.43/100 g.
The food expert doesn’t understand why margarine is still so expensive.
“It’s a little weird. The cost of vegetable oil has dropped significantly over the past few months. Margarine should be less expensive,” says Mr. Charlebois.
Healthier, really?
Besides the price argument, which has always been in favor of margarine, it is also said that it is healthier than butter.
This is not entirely true. “Very few studies are able to compare the difference in health between the two products. It is very difficult to identify in the long term whether heart attacks, for example, are increasing due to butter or margarine, ”explains nutritionist Michèle Rousseau.
In short, isolating butter and margarine from an individual’s food intake in order to analyze their health impacts is impossible.
On the other hand, we know that margarine is a processed food. “And the more a food is processed, the easier it is to cheat on its quality,” says the member of the Ordre des diététistes-nutritionnistes du Québec.
Mme Rousseau first recommends olive oil as a fatty substance. “It’s the best for your health,” she says.
Her second choice is butter because it is less processed and people eat it in small amounts, like on their bread in the morning.
In last place, we find margarine.