SIR,—We have always resisted changes in our food. Our cave-dwelling
ancestors, although they were not able to write to the Spectator, no doubt got hot under their bison-skin collars when some of their tribe began to grow cereals instead of eating only roots and berries with their meat. Mr. Cyril Ray seems to have a similar reaction about margarine, which some people use instead of butter.
The idea that margarine is less easily digested than butter has been refuted by the results of all the tests which have been 'carried out—and these have been many. buring the war, the Ministry of Food offered to give a special butter allowance in- stead of margarine to every person who could show that he was unable to digest margarine as well as he could digest butter. Not one such individual turned up.
No one is saying that people must eat margarine instead of butter, any more than they should drink mild ale instead of bitter or eat apples instead of pears. But it is one thing for Mr. Cyril Ray to say he prefers butter to margarine, and quite another to say that margarine is in any way an unsatisfactory or even harmful food.—Yours faithfully,
JOHN YUDKIN Queen Elizabeth College, University of London
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