Which Butter is Best?

Here’s a great question that someone asked me recently…
Hi Debbie, I have been using Smart Balance Light Butter & Canola Oil Blend (spreadable). I am wondering if this is a good choice for me (it contains polyunsaturated fat).  I have high cholesterol.
Fat content: Total – 5gsmart balance
Saturated – 2g
Trans – 0
Polyunsaturated – 1g
Monounsaturated – 2.5g
Ingredients (in order) are water, butter, canola oil, 2% buttermilk powder, fish oil, plant sterols, salt, lactic acid, distilled monoglycerides, natural flavor, pectin, PGPR, potassium sorbate, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene color. It looks good because the fat content is low ( and we’ve been led to believe that important); also, the Canola Oil Lobby has done an incredible job promoting their product as healthy.  I don’t think it is and here’s why.
Canola Oil is an Omega 6 oil, that means it’s “poly-unsaturated”.  Our body needs PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids), that’s what Omega 3s are.  But of all the oils, their chemical structure is the most UNSTABLE.  This matters.  Unstable fats are 100% prone to damage in the presence of heat and light and oxygen (unlike Saturated fat, which is HIGHLY stable).  The body will use damaged fats to build cell walls and cell membranes if we eat them.  Imagine building a brick building with rocks from the drive way and trying to make it work.  Is that a good picture?The ONLY way to “expel” the oil from the seed of the canola (actually the plant is called RapeSeed, they call the oil canola to make it sound more pleasant), is ….thru heat. Period.  So when it gets to the bottle, it’s already damaged.  If you’re cooking with it, you’re damaging it even more.
Let’s look at the rest of the ingredients in the artificial butter-like spread product.  Buttermilk powder:  when you see this, or skim milk powder, which legally does NOT have to be identified when added to milk products,  know that it’s Oxidized.  Oxidized Fats are super super bad for us.  They damage artery walls.  Talk about skyrocketing LDL levels. Distilled Monoglycerides:  this is fascinating.  Mono and Di-glycerides are Hydrogenated Palm Oil.  As in , it’s a Hydrogenated Fat. (bad bad bad).  But when the chemists who discovered how to do it went for their patent, they applied for it as an EMULSIFIER, not as a hydrogenated fat.  So when you see mono and diglycerides on the ingredient label, they do NOT have to be included in the fat identification.  Ugh.  Thank you FDA.  Natural Flavor: read MSG and a TON of chemicals  (how else do you make butter flavor out of thin air?)  PGPR: an emulsifier from psycho showercastor beans usually used to make cheaper chocolates thin and viscous.  Moussalini force fed this to prisoners to give them dirrehea and stomach problems to make them talk.  I guess food scientists are just always keeping their ear to the ground for inventive ways to use neat products.  Potassium Sorbate:  this has a GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status, because the FDA says we would only see side effects (nausea and migraines) with long term use. Hmmmm. What the heck do they consider “long term use”?  Go back and look at the ingredient list for Butter (….. cream….).
 Compare that to this “healthy, low fat, butter substitute”.  And finally, to partially address the “I have high cholesterol” and since this contains PUFAs, it must be good, right? Read this:  There is NO Good Scientific Link Between Healthy Saturated Fats and High Cholesterol.
Cholesterol is going to be another email unto it’s self, so I’ll just point you in a couple of directions if you’re really interested:  go on WheatBelly.com or ChrisKresser.com and put cholesterol into their search bar.  Look at the research instead of listening to marketing via pharmaceutical makers.
Back to this product and cholesterol.  There’s damaged, oxidized buttermilk that raises cholesterol, there’s damaged PUFAs that raise cholesterol, and there’s chemicals that go thru the body and cause damage, and that raises cholesterol. Cholesterol is used by the body as a healing substance.  Seriously.  God did not make a giant mistake when He designed our bodies so that almost EVERY SINGLE CELL we have produces cholesterol.  And the liver produces tons.  Where there is INFLAMMATION, from Insulin, from Sugar, from Chemicals, and from Damaged Fats, the liver sends CHOLESTEROL to patch or fix it…….Reread that last paragraph.
food:medicineYou want lower cholesterol?  Quit eating sugar and processed carbs, quit eating chemicals, and quit eating bad fats.
Want to lose weight?  Quit eating sugar and processed carbs, quit eating chemicals, and quit eating bad fats.
Want to get healthy?  Quit eating sugar and processed carbs, quit eating chemicals, and quit eating bad fats.
Eat Real Whole Foods.

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