Polyunsaturated margarine

thriftmonster

Butter unfortunately is out in house - 2 lactose intolerant and one who doesn't eat dairy because of his sinuses. Whilst I agree with Thriftlady and would much rather use butter, my compromises are (in baking):
I use lard and sunflower and olive oil as much as possible
Otherwise I look for a marg with the best composition I can - using Walter Willett's guidelines from the Harvard School of Public Nutrition
1. Saturated fat % to be below 50% and preferably lower
2. Highest level of mono unsaturated fat as poss
3. MOST IMPORTANT - add up the grams of saturated, mono and poly fat in the nutritional guide and compare to total fat - they should be pretty much the same. If your adding up gives you a number much lower than the total - the difference is the dreaded trans fat!!! and should be totally avoided. Using this I have found one or two margarines that I am comfortable using in small amounts - and I would rather do that than feed ds1 the rubbish (very expensive) that lurks in the "free from" areas.

The_Money_Saver_2

I like thrift's post -very interesting. Thank you. I often look at the ingredients on the back of the packet. The amount of ingredients etc in some of these products worries me.

thriftlady_2

cave wrote: »

It's been shown that unsaturated fat is better than saturated fat for you - in terms of heart disease and cholesterol, if nothing else.

I'm not sure the lipid hypothesis has been proved one way or another -see here. for example it doesn't explain why the French have a lower incidence of CHD yet eat a diet higher in saturated fat. Could the answer be that they just eat less than the rest of us?

To quote Michael Pollan again -'Eat food, not too much, mostly plants'. In other words eat real foods not those that have been concocted in a lab/factory, don't overeat and eat alot of plant based foods.

A good rule of thumb is that if it has health claims on the packet then it probably isn't real food-real food tends not to come in a packet.

Eat butter, meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, grains, olive oil, cheese, milk, eggs.

afterglow_2

i think you can argue the science for either side being healthier!!
one is a very natural, basic product (butter) so therefore in moderation, with a healthy active lifestyle and balanced diet, will provide some health benefits, well as much as eating fat can!!
the other is synthetic, highly processed and contains a lot of things you would rather not be consuming (margarine), however as part of the same healthy, balanced active lifestyle and diet, will provide some nutritional benefits, as far as eating fat can!!!!

the best option is choose whichever suits the purpose, and use in moderation!!!

weemissy

At the risk of confusing myself even more - I use butter but the spreadable kind. Is the nonspreadable butter for you? Is there any easy way to convert butter amount to olive oil amount when baking? - Is olive oil better for you than butter?

lolarentt

weemissy wrote: »

At the risk of confusing myself even more - I use butter but the spreadable kind. Is the nonspreadable butter for you? Is there any easy way to convert butter amount to olive oil amount when baking? - Is olive oil better for you than butter?

Yes from the healthy viewpoint olive oil 'good', butter 'bad' (but very tasty!). I use olive oil when baking bread etc rather than butter/marge and use 2 tbs (30ml) for 25/28gm specified. Works out fine! I still use butter/Echo for cakes and the like though

thriftlady_2

lolarentt wrote: »

Yes from the healthy viewpoint olive oil 'good', butter 'bad' (but very tasty!). I use olive oil when baking bread etc rather than butter/marge and use 2 tbs (30ml) for 25/28gm specified. Works out fine! I still use butter/Echo for cakes and the like though

I don't use any fat at all when making bread

Butter is not bad for you.

lolarentt

thriftlady wrote: »

I don't use any fat at all when making bread

That's French bread then - very good but doesn't keep well (which is why the french bake and buy their baguettes fresh 3 times a day).

Not that keeping is ever a problem with homemade bread!

thriftlady_2

lolarentt wrote: »

That's French bread then - very good but doesn't keep well (which is why the french bake and buy their baguettes fresh 3 times a day).

Not that keeping is ever a problem with homemade bread!

No, not French bread at all this is the recipe I use although I usually substitute half the flour for wholemeal. i don't bother warming the flour first. I make about 8 loaves a week -4 in one go.

lolarentt

No, I didn't mean french bread in appearance, just that bread without fat is french style, produces crusty bread best eaten quite quickly (which I'm sure isn't a problem)