Should you stick to margarine? (stick margarine may raise blood cholesterol levels; butter also raises cholesterol levels)

The rumors began to spread several months ago when headlines like "Stick Margarine May Boost Risk of Heart Attacks" and "Study Links Heart Disease to Margarine" led to talk that margarine is just as "bad" for the heart as butter. They were prompted by the findings of Harvard researchers, whose examination of the health and eating habits of some 85,000 middle-aged women showed that those who reported eating the most margarine--more than four pats a day--were 50 percent more likely to fall victim to heart disease than those who eschewed it.

Similar "no better than butter" rumors had circulated just a few months earlier, when a U.S. Department of Agriculture study indicated that certain fats in margarine, like the saturated fat in butter, are capable of raising blood cholesterol. The much talked about fats, trans fatty acids, are formed when margarine makers go about the process of hardening vegetable oils from liquids into tub spreads or more solid sticks via a technique called hydrogenation. …