Canola or butter?

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mjrose514
mjrose514 Posts: 60 Member
So I've heard butter is actually good for you, but it has less monounsaturated fats than canola oil, so which is better, or both?

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  • Dragonwolf
    Dragonwolf Posts: 5,600 Member
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    Butter, hands down.

    1. Saturated fat isn't bad, and in fact is necessary for cell and neurological health. Butter also contains the extremely beneficial fats, butyrate and conjugated linoleic acid.

    2. Butter, being a more "whole" food (ie - not heavily processed, you can easily make it yourself from cream), has far more nutrients, including Vitamins A, E, and K2.

    3. Canola oil is heavily refined, with conventionally-produced oil going through solvent extraction, bleaching, and deodorizing processes. This means a lot of any nutrients it may have had are destroyed in the oil-making process.

    Here's a video on how Canola oil is made:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omjWmLG0EAs

    Personally, I stay away from most of the seed oils, additionally because of their high polyunsaturated fat content (we don't need a lot of polyunsaturated fats, and most of them are Omega-6, which we really don't need a lot of). Saturated and monounsaturated fats are the way to go -- coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, butter and animal fats, etc. The less processing the fat/oil goes through, the better, because the more nutrients are left intact.
  • mjrose514
    mjrose514 Posts: 60 Member
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    Lol thanks! My poor husband is going insane trying to help me lol. Funny thing, we've actually made butter in the stand mixer, fun but very messy.,
  • KnitOrMiss
    KnitOrMiss Posts: 10,104 Member
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    I've made butter by accident in trying to whip cream. Is there a good source you recommend online? I know usually Amazon and such has good prices.
  • Dragonwolf
    Dragonwolf Posts: 5,600 Member
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    I've made butter by accident in trying to whip cream. Is there a good source you recommend online? I know usually Amazon and such has good prices.

    Honestly? The best place to get cream is from local dairies. Both Oklahoma and South Carolina allow the sale of raw milk from the farm (which is awesome, I'm jealous). You may be able to get cream from them ("premade") or you can get milk, let it sit in the fridge for an hour or two, and skim the cream off the top and use the milk for other things.

    As for butter, well...it's the same answer, technically, though there's more leeway. Like, you can get Kerrygold butter (Irish grass fed butter) from a number of stores now. It's considered the gold standard among a lot of groups.

    For either one, check your stores for a "local foods" section. Chain stores might have them in some stores and not others, so don't dismiss a location just because you checked a different one (Kroger is like that around here, one has whole spots dedicated to local stuff, while the other has nothing, even though they're three miles apart).
  • mjrose514
    mjrose514 Posts: 60 Member
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    Yup we have happy cow about 30 min away. We love getting stuff there, especially the roll butter, but it's a luxury.