My parents told me about pink margarine from when they were living in Denver and my dad was going to school there on the GI bill (so around 46-48).

The pink color worked. I never saw margarine in the house when I was growing up (50s) in a Boston ‘burb where margarine was colored like butter — sort of. I got the "pink margarine" story from my Dad when we were to a diner and they served pats of an unknown-to-me substance along with bread. "Dad... there's something wrong with the butter - should I eat it?"

Given that the hydrogenation process can easily load margarine with toxic trans fats, and that the margarine back then was probably loaded with trans fats, I'm glad they stuck with butter.

Even without trans fats, I don't think it's better for us than butter, excepting any made with monounsaturated fats. Fats we eat end up being incorporated into our cell membranes, and polyunsaturated fats are very susceptible to oxidative damage. Mono are much less, and saturated aren't at all.

The demonization of sat fats is mostly about one guy (who had a degree in fish study) jumping to a conclusion and later being so invested that he was unwilling to follow any new science.