the butter aisle
Have you watched the TV program “Amazing Race” where teams race from city to city? Same deal here, but we’re inside a supermarket. We started in the cereal aisle and then moved to the bread aisle, searching for foods that met our health criteria of whole grains plus more natural fiber than added sugar. Unfortunately, only a few products passed our test. Finding healthy foods outside the produce department isn’t that easy.
Today we’re in the butter aisle. At least I think of it as the butter aisle, but it’s mostly soybean oil. It’s a strange world, not as simple as I thought: there are 72 different products offered. This seems like marketing trickery: instead of offering a few healthy products at good value, there is a confusing jumble of stuff of unknown healthiness. Butter and hydrogenated margarine products are at opposite ends of the aisle, glaring at each other over the tubs of “spreads”. Spreads? Spreads are the new name for what we used to call soft margarine.
Butter: There's a good feeling to the butter section. The companies are old, venerable. Challenge Dairy Products has been in business since 1911; their Danish Creamery brand has been around since 1895. Things are simpler here; butter is mainly sold salted in cubes. You can also buy it unsalted, whipped, or organic (Horizon Organic, or Wild Harvest). The ingredient list is refreshingly short for butter. Prices range from $4.49 for the store brand to $8.78 for Plugra European Style Butter, but most brands are around $5.00 a pound. This could be all you need except some are allergic to milk products or are avoiding saturated fats (a topic for another day). Land O’ Lakes is a cooperative offering butter but also blends it with olive oil, or canola oil (which gives an omega-3 label claim). Life’s good in the butter section; the local Henry's even has natural cream from pasture-fed cows.
Margarine: Margarine was a bad idea that hung around for a century. The soft margarines were highest in trans fats and they have pretty much disappeared. The hard margarines have trans fats too, but less, so they are still sold. How much trans fat? It ranges from 1.5 to 3.0 grams per serving. Several brands claimed “zero” as allowed by the FDA but the ingredient list said “hydrogenated” so this suggests they just have less than 0.5 grams. The Institute of Medicine recommends that we eat no trans fats so why are these products still offered? Because some poor person will buy them—they sell at rock bottom prices, as low as $.99 per pound for the store brand. Some day we’ll address why the supermarkets stopped caring about their customers.
Spreads in Tubs: The old margarines are called spreads now. In recent years a product called Smart Balance made life difficult for the bully of the spread market—the British company Unilever. (Unilever dominates with brands like Imperial, Shedd’s Spread Country Crock, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Promise, and upmarket Brummel & Brown.) What Smart Balance did was to develop a patented method to make an oil emulsion (using soybean, palm, canola and olive oils) that didn’t have trans fats and then make a big noise about their lack of trans fats. This put pressure on Unilever and forced them to abandon their hydrogenated products in 2010. They replaced them with a new process that uses interesterification to blend soybean and palm oils. Is this a healthy product? Good question; it was good enough to pass FDA requirements, but we don’t know what the long-term effects might be. On the other hand, I don’t have any information that the Smart Balance product is better—it has a long ingredient list too. Prices range from $1.39 to $3.79 for a 15 oz. container. The higher priced brands have canola or olive oil plus some synthetic vitamins added. There’s some marketing trickery in the tub products: some use terms like “buttery” or “butter taste” but they don’t contain butter.
The bottom line? I’m going to enjoy butter in moderation. If you have a milk allergy and can’t eat butter, what do you do? I don’t have an answer because I’m uncomfortable with soybean oils. Many of the soybeans grown are GMOs, most oils are extracted using the toxic chemical hexane, and there are concerns about thermal damage to the oils during processing. The industry has not been open about how they process oils, perhaps to protect trade secrets, so we don’t know enough to choose their products. Wouldn’t it be better to inform more and market less?
Question for comment: What do you use besides butter?
Friday, March 18, 2011 at 12:51PM | by Skip Hellewell | 37 Comments | 1 Reference | Share Article | in fats 101, grocery shopping | Email Article
Reader Comments (37)
I use almond spread as a butter alternative after my naturopath recommended it, but now you've got me scared about drinking soy milk-eek!
I love this blog, you have provided so much useful information. I use butter for cooking goodies and applesauce in breads, muffins, those sorts of things. It seems to work fine, but can sometimes give kind of a spongy texture, which is why I use real butter for treats.
I use organic butter and olive oil for cooking and some baking. In baking cakes or quick breads(like muffins) that call for oil or butter I use organic yogurt instead. It works like a charm and makes them super moist!
I've always wondered what makes up the "butter" spreads -- I usually love them for spreading on corn on the cob, toast, baked potatoes but now know better. Thank you Word of Wisdom!
I have a question about those "Olive Oil" spreads you see in some places. (One brand that comes to mind is Olivani). Could it be a good compromise between margarine and butter? Is it better or worse for you than the tubs of margarine?
Thank you for this blog -- it has really taught me so much.
I had to go dairy/soy free this last year b/c my breastfed baby was allergic. I found a product called Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread. It is made up of mainly palm fruit, canola, safflower and olive oil. I don't know if it meets all of your other health criteria, but if you can't do dairy or soy, this is a really yummy alternative!
Skip,
I gave the RS lesson on the word of wisdom this week and on my handout I included the URL for your blog. I love that each post is packed with info, concise, and well researched. Thank you for helping us all as we try to live healthier lives.
avocado.
I have heard of a combination of butter and olive oil but haven't tried it yet. Apparently the oil makes the butter more spreadable and it is of course healthier. Has anyone actually tried this?
to rachel:
that's what i use at my house. mix equal parts EVOO and butter. it keeps soft in the fridge. and is perfect for toast :)
I'm almost 40 (thin)and grew up without margarine (thank you Mom and Dad!), and love real butter. It is all about whole foods in my opinion. We always left salted butter out on the counter (covered), except for the melting days of summer, and I don't remember it ever being left long enough to get rancid or make anyone sick. It makes spreading on toast -so much easier.
We use the Earth Balance olive oil-based "spread" - and sometimes the sticks for baking. I love that it's not hydrogenated and doesn't have trans fats, although I definitely still use it sparingly.
We use organic Earth Balance in moderation since we stay away from all things dairy. You can get it at Whole Foods, Trader Joes or other health food stores. It's tasty and the healthiest butter alternative out there.
Brittany-Butter can go rancid if left out of the fridge too long. I know because I made my husband sick serving him toast buttered with rancid butter!
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Grapeseed oil yet (I have only read 20 comments so far though). I think it's an excellent neutral oil and I use it to bake my whole wheat bread and it works great. I also use it to pop my popcorn in the oil popper my parents bought me.
After reading Nina Planck's book on Real Food I've been eating whole dairy for almost a year, and recently went in to have my cholesterol tested. They told me my number is 114, that they are very happy with that number, and continued diet and exercise should edge it down a little more. I'm thrilled that this whole foods thing is doing good things for my body!
I eat a lot of butter :)
Land 'o Lakes unsalted butter for baking, when needed. Always. I trust the brand and it's always accessible. I made the switch from margarine a year or two ago, and have finally convinced my husband not to even make eye contact with margarine in the grocery store. We use mostly olive oil for cooking, grapeseed oil for popcorn, and other flavored oils (not vegetable) for various dishes. Now on to breaking my addiction to white flour and white sugar.
In response to the butter on the counter comments--I don't know the official rules, but I've used butter left out on the counter (covered) for 30 years and never had it go bad or gotten sick. Of course if it took you weeks to get through it or something, that may be another story, but I've used it for up to a week and had no problem. Maybe that's bad, but until I get sick or have proof otherwise, I loooove my real soft butter :).
Also, my son has dairy allergies to all cow's milk products. I don't use any butter alternative for him. He's also allergic to eggs, so we just don't do a lot of baking around here, and he uses jam, peanut butter, etc. as spreads for toast and rolls. Don't get me wrong, I love butter, but I don't think there HAS to be an alternative. We use EVOO for cooking.
I think the "leaving the butter out" issue is too subjective-- butter doesn't go rancid in our house up here in Washington because we never turn the heat above 58 degrees and we never leave more than a quarter of a cube out. When we lived in the Southwest, however, butter would go rancid in a couple days if left out. It really depends on the environment.
We only use butter for toast and baking chocolate chip cookies. I've been trying to switch my kids to peanut butter instead of butter to get them some more protein, but it hasn't worked. My husband and daughter have perfected an oatmeal choc chip recipe that uses freshly ground flax seed in lieu of most of the butter. In fact, if it's just for the family, they make it with all whole wheat flour too. But if we are giving any of them away, we have to use half white flour because most people think they aren't sweet enough otherwise.
So, try some of that good ole' flax in your baking. Make sure it is fresh though. It can go rancid faster than butter if left unrefrigerated.