Margarine.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16960, 8 October 1920, Page 6

Margarine.

One of the first results of the serious advance in the price of butter has been to direct the thoughts of many people, as our correspondence columns have shown, to the possibility of a substitute, and thence, naturally, to the use, in that capacity, of margarine. Here, in New Zealand, that is a foodstuff of which most people have had no personal experience, but at Home, at first under the names of "oleomargarine" or "buttqrine, ,, it has been known for more than a generation, and during the war it came into almost universal use, instead of butter. Like the latter, it varied greatly in quality, but tho best brands, which had an enormous sale, are said by people who spent most of the war years in England, to be equal to good table buttor. And it had the further advantage of being cheap, good margarine being sold last year at Home for 8d per lb, while butter was costing 3s 6d. Hitherto, owing to the comparative cheapness of butter, there has been little demand for margarine in the Dominion, but now that tho dairy farmers have secured a free market for their produce, and can sell practically as much butter as they can send away for half-a-crown a pound, the local price has soared until butter has become a costly item in the food bills of householders. Unfortunately, for tho reasons mentioned, little margarine is made in New Zealand, and the manufacture of a high-grade article is declared, ■ by persons of experience, to bo impossible until the regulations under the Sale of Pure Foods Act are' altered. At present these provide that margarine includes all substances prepared or manufactured from any form of animal fats "other than butter-fat "or milk," or of animal, mineral, or "vegetable oils. , ' Tho wordß quoted— "other than butter-fat or milk"—debar the manufacturo of a first-class table margarine, and are so favourable t* tho dairying industry, by keeping a dangerous competitor out of the field, as to suggest that they were inserted for that purpose. Tho English Act governing this matter permits the inclusion of 10 per cent, of butter-fat among the ingredients of margarine, and also the addition of colouring mattor, which is forbidden in New Zealand. One of the first tilings which, the New Zealand Government should do, in the interests of the public, ia to bring the regulations concerning tho composition of locally-made margarine into conformity with the English law on the subject. Margarine is somewhat inferior in food valud and digestibility to butter, which, is one of the most nutritious . and easily digested of all j "foods, but it is perfectly wholesome,' being made of various pure vegetable oils, "oleo," of which quantities are exported from New Zealand, and millc or butter. Its manufacture in New Zealand would be a boon to a great many households, and will, no doubt, be undertaken as soon as the Legislature removes the prohibition to which we have referred.