Margarine Was Invented To Feed Turkeys And Margarine Myths

If you’ve spent any time on the internet over the last twenty years, you’ve likely stumbled upon a terrifying list of “facts” about margarine. This viral chain message claims that margarine was originally invented to fatten turkeys (and killed them), that it’s “one molecule away from being plastic,” and that even flies won’t touch the stuff.

Visual representation of the margarine turkey myth, showing domestic turkeys next to a plastic container of yellow margarine.

While these claims are designed to scare you away from your morning toast, the real story of margarine is far more interesting than the fiction. It wasn’t born in a turkey coop; it was a prize-winning invention born from a 19th-century war challenge issued by Napoleon III.

Below, we dive deep into the definitive history of this controversial spread—from the “Color Wars” that led to pink margarine to the actual science behind those famous internet myths.

Quick Myth-Buster Gallery

The Turkey Myth: Did a failed bird feed experiment lead to your dinner table? No—margarine was actually a prize-winning invention commissioned by Napoleon III to feed his troops. Read the Full History Here
The Spoilage Myth: Does the fact that flies avoid margarine prove it isn’t “real” food? Not exactly—there is a specific scientific reason involving hydrolytic rancidity why bugs prefer butter over vegetable oils. Read the real science
The Plastic Myth: Is margarine really just “one molecule away” from being Tupperware? While “plasticity” is a physical property of fats, chemically, it is no closer to plastic than water is to hydrogen peroxide. Read the Science Deep Dive
Margarine Was Once Dyed Pink: Was it really illegal to sell yellow margarine in some states? Yes—a massive legal battle with the dairy industry led to “Pink Laws” that forced manufacturers to dye their product a bright, unappetizing rose color. Read the Colorful History

Was Margarine Invented to Fatten Turkeys? The Truth Behind the Viral Myth

One of the most persistent claims in the original viral email is that margarine was manufactured to fatten turkeys and only sold to humans after it started killing the birds. While it makes for a vivid urban legend, it has one major flaw: it isn’t true.

Margarine wasn’t born in a turkey coop; it was born in a laboratory. In 1869, Napoleon III of France issued a high-stakes challenge to find a cheap, shelf-stable butter substitute for his sailors and soldiers during the Franco-Prussian War. The prize was won by a chemist named Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, who developed a unique process using beef tallow and milk to create what he called oleomargarine.

Unlike the “white substance with no food appeal” claimed by the internet, this original margarine was a pale yellow semi-fluid with a pleasant, butter-like taste.

Who Invented Margarine? Napoleon III and the 1869 Butter Challenge

Margarine was invented in France by Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès in 1869, during the Franco-Prussian War. As explained above, he invented it in response to a competitive challenge from the French government under Napoleon III, who was looking for a cheap and stable substitute for butter, and offered a big prize to anyone who could pull it off.

Butter was expensive, hard to come by, and didn’t hold up for long. The substitute was desired for war troops to carry along as a ready and cheap source of food energy.

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How Was Margarine Invented?

Prior to the challenge, Mège-Mouriès had already been investigating this area by studying cows at the imperial farms. He had observed that underfed cows lost weight, but they still produced milk, only at a lesser yield. Yet, this milk still contained fat.

He deduced that the fat in the milk must come from the actual body fat reserves of the cows, the tallow ¹ rather than being derived directly from food. However, beef tallow does not have the same melting properties as milkfat since tallow contains fat fractions that melt at a much higher temperature.

So, he figured that the fat must somehow be fractionated through some process before being transported to the mammary glands and dispersed as an emulsion in the milk. The “harder” fractions, those with the higher melting points, he reasoned, must be used by the cow for energy.

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Mège thought that the enzymatic action of pepsin had something to do with this fractionation process, so he figured that maybe he could imitate the process. He rendered fresh tallow at body heat (45° C), using artificial gastric juices to separate tissue from fat. Then he crystallized the fat at a lower ambient temperature and extracted it under pressure to obtain a soft semi-fluid fraction, called oleomargarine, and a hard white fat called oleostearine. ¹ ²

Was Original Margarine Actually White? Debunking the Dye and Color Myths

The internet compilation claims that this first margarine was white. But, interestingly, this oleomargarine produced by Mège had a pale yellow color, like most butter; and it also had a pleasant taste which was similar to butter. ³

What is funny about this is that the margarine fact compilation, right after the first part about it being invented for turkeys, states the following:

It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter.

The first margarine was NOT a pure white substance, and it DID have food appeal. So as far as the first margarine is concerned, the claim that it was unlike food is a myth. And not all butter is deep yellow, by the way, it depends on when in the season it is produced. Some butter with a deeper yellow color has had annatto coloring added, a carotenoid, to keep the color consistent.

People think that yellow means quality in butter, which it doesn’t, although the color, when not artificial, does signify a bit richer flavor. Some butter is a very pale color while some is more yellow. Therefore, before I continue with the margarine narrative, let me give you a better lowdown on the color of butter, and some overview of the added color in margarine controversy.

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Butter Can Be Pale-Yellow to Deep Yellow

Milkfat commonly has a pale yellow color and this is the color that most U.S consumers associate with quality. However, there is a range of colors possible for butter, and the color, as long as it is within this range, does not affect the quality scoring, as far as the USDA is concerned. In other words, a more yellow butter will not be Grade A, just because it is more yellow. What they look for instead are color defects. You don’t want butter with colored specks, or streaks, or any kind of uneven color.

You also don’t want butter that is very pale and bleached-looking. But beyond all that, butter can come in a range of pale yellows. The color of the butter is controlled by the availability of feed. The carotenoids in the green feeds produce the yellow color. ¹ Used to be, in the spring and summer, when cows were grazing on green forage, the butter produced from their milk had a more yellow color. Over the winter, when they were being fed dried grains, the butter was more pale.

The nice yellow butter or spring butter had a bit more flavor than the winter butter so a more yellow butter became associated with a better butter. People still expect this today, so it is not unheard of to add a bit of color to make a commercial butter product consistent all year long. ² This is also because people expect absolute consistency in food products, even in products that would normally come in a range of colors when left unadulterated.

Adding Color to Margarine

Now, this practice of adding some color to butter to make any butter look like spring butter was being done way back when margarine was still fairly new. The subsequent margarines produced from vegetable oils, as opposed to the tallow that Mège initially used, did not have a yellow color, this is true. The makers added color so that their product looked more like butter.

The butter industry got very upset over this and called it fraud. They ignored the fact that they also added color to their product without revealing it to the consumer. However, their argument was that butter cannot really be expected to be uniform in color, but in a time of packaged goods, consumers expect uniformity, as mentioned above.

Thus, the edition of yellow color. If butter were left white when it was white, sometimes there would be yellow butter, and other times there would be pale or whitish butter, and uniformity would be threatened. Plus, they argued, butter would have no distinction from margarine.

At this time, the dairy industry had only just come into its own, so to speak. Preserving dairy products so that they could be produced and distributed on a large scale had been very difficult in the past. Now that the dairy industry was an actual industry, along came margarine to threaten it, with what it saw as a fraudulent and illegitimate product.

Margarine Taxes and Pink Laws: Why Big Dairy Tried to Ban Margarine

Through lobbying, eventually, a bill was passed in 1886 that didn’t prohibit margarine, but levied taxes making it very difficult for it to be sold:

Manufacturers must pay a $600 licensing fee
Wholesalers must pay $480 a year, unless they sold only uncolored margarine, in which case they paid $200
Grocers had to pay license fees of $48 and $6 dollars, colored or uncolored, respectively
Colored margarine taxed at 10 cents per pound
Uncolored margarine taxed at 4 cents per pound

The taxes on colored and uncolored margarine increased over the years.

The public has the perception that margarine industry has enjoyed a free and unmolested rise. This obviously is not true. In fact, even before this national bill was passed, many states had placed various restrictions or bans on margarine, some of which remained in place almost to the 1950’s.

In Pennsylvania, margarine labels had to be done in Gothic type
Utah required licensing and fees from retailers of margarine
In West Virginia, Virginia, Vermont, and New Hampshire and other states, margarine must be colored pink ³

In 1941, a Standard of Identity was defined for margarine, and the tax laws were repealed in 1950. After that, margarine sales increased. ⁴

Is Margarine Newer Than Butter? The History of Commercial Spreads

Another claim made by the compilation specifically reads:

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

I know this article has been very very long, but if you’ve been patient enough to follow along up to this point, dear reader, you already know that the claim that margarine has been around for less than 100 years is false. Margarine has been around over 140 years. Regardless, how long a food has been around has nothing to do with how good or bad it is—not that I am saying that you should be eating margarine off a spoon. I would recommend butter. Still not off a spoon.

The First Commercial Margarine Products

This section was not originally part of this article. I added it to clear up some confusion regarding “white” margarine products readers may remember from the 1940s. As described above, the first margarine was made from beef tallow. This gave it a pale yellow color, as well as some taste. The first commercial margarines were indeed produced from the tallow fats of beef, and perhaps other animal fats. These margarines were sold for over 30 years before the process of hydrogenation was invented and patented in 1902.

These tallow margarines were sold commercially as early as 1871 in countries such as Denmark, Netherlands, France, and Austria-Hungary. In the United States, the first commercial margarine was sold as early as 1874. In Germany, 1875, and in the U.K., 1889.

But, the biggest change in margarine was the use of vegetable oils, which were made into margarine by a process called hydrogenation, to make the fats saturated, like animal fats, by artificial means. As you’ve probably guessed, margarine wasn’t always called margarine, at least not everywhere. It was sometimes called just oleo, sometimes oleomargarine, sometimes margarine, and in Britain, Butterine.

Health Claims In Margarine Message

There are many health claims in the original message. I have ignored most of these in this article. This is because, if you read the message you can see that the entire purpose of the message was not to repeat claims of how margarine affects your health, but to drive home the purported difference between margarine and butter as discussed above. That being said, although there is no credible evidence to back up some of the health claims, there is a kernel of truth to some of them.

According to the evidence we have at present, trans fats should generally be avoided. In 2006 the FDA began requiring food manufacturers to list the amount of trans fats in their products. Most “margarine” products, marketed as butter substitutes, no longer contain any hydrogenated fats, and any comparison between these modern products and the original margarine products is not intended in this article. Margarine is still available, however.

Why Am I Not Addressing “Modern” Margarines?

I have received several related comments about the fact that this article has nothing to do with modern butter substitutes, such as “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter” or “Country Crock” while others have informed me in various ways of how terrible margarine is, etc. Most readers expect such a “butter versus margarine” article to tell them what they already believe, that butter is better and more healthy than margarine. This was not my purpose.

I have copied and pasted, with some minor alterations, my response to one such comment, as a final explanation:

This is more of a historical overview in response to the netlore, email chain, etc. that still circulates to this day, than any attempt to compare butter to the types of products that are now sitting on shelves.

In fact, although they are still colloquially known as margarine, they are not margarine at all and are not legally allowed to be called margarine. So, I am indeed comparing butter to margarine and not comparing butter to butter-substitute spreads.

While older margarine products relied on the use of hydrogenated fats, some may be concerned that these products replace the trans fat with more saturated fat, such as from palm oil, palm kernel oil, and coconut oil.

It is worth mentioning that, although there has recently begun a health-craze concerning coconut oil as a supplement, these are not available to consumers as cooking oils at the grocery-store level but are used in large-scale food production. (*Update: Since this section was written, coconut oil has become more widely available to consumers for use in home cooking or for use on the skin, etc.)

However, it is not true that this article only concerns margarine made over 100 years ago, as one reader commented. The type of margarine still available in the 1980s and into the 1990s would still be subject to these claims, and in fact, it is these more modern margarines made with vegetable oils rather than animal fats that the original netlore concerns.

I’ve illustrated as much in my corrections of the incorrect margarine history given in the original message. That original is included below.

The Legacy of the “Butter Wars”

The history of margarine is a wild ride from Napoleon III’s battlefield rations to the legislative “Color Wars” of the 20th century. While the viral myths of the early 2000s painted a picture of a “near-plastic” turkey-killer, the truth is far more grounded in food science and economic competition.

Whether you choose butter or margarine for your table today, understanding the difference between a scary internet legend and actual chemistry is key. If you want to dive even deeper into the specific science and legal battles we’ve touched on, check out our full investigations below:

Chemistry Check: Explore the truth behind the margarine and plastic molecular myth.
The Spoilage Test: See why flies actually avoid certain fats in our deep dive on the garage test.
Colorful History: Learn more about the bizarre era of pink margarine laws.

The Infamous 2003 Margarine Email

Here is the original chain message compilation of ‘facts’ about butter and margarine as it still appears and is being circulated on the net:

Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.

It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings….

DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?

Read on to the end…gets very interesting!

Both have the same amount of calories. Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods. Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added!

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .

And now, for Margarine..

Very High in Trans fatty acids.

Triples risk of coronary heart disease …

Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)

Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..

Lowers quality of breast milk

Decreases immune response.

Decreases insulin response.

And here’s the most disturbing fact… HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC… and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT.

These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow.

Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?