Butter Substitute?

albinogorilla

I am a big fan of Land o'Lakes sweet cream salted butter. Of all the adjustments I've made toward a more healthier lifestyle, I just can't seem to get myself to not cook with real butter. I just think that real butter tastes better.

So, could anyone please recommend which butter substitute is the most like real butter but is lower in calories and fat?
What do you all use? Thanks!

I didn't read all the posts so sorry if a repeat, but they make a light version of the same that you mentioned that i use on occasion. And when i really want to take it easy, I can't believe its not butter zero calorie spray. I have made tuna melts with that and its works. Worth a shot........

mmapags

what do people think of becel??

You know I'd never heard of it so I googled it. It's a modified vegetable oil. Says no trans fat. it's made from palm oil and palm kernal oil which are heatlthy fats. They lose me though as soon as I see it's an engineered food. I just don't trust engineered and/or processed foods. Why do it? Why not just stay with the foods that are whole.

Another thing that jumped out at me is that they really push "less saturated fat". Well palm oil and palm kernal oil are saturated fats I believe. Also, based on more recent cardio research inlcuding the Framingham Heart Study which began in 1948 and is still ongoing, findings are that saturated dietary fat has little relationship to cardio cholesterol and in fact, saturated fats are far more resistant to oxidation which causes arterial plaque than oils like corn oil, canola oil, soybean oil, safflower oil and other "lighter" oils.

Other than regular old butter, the oils I would trust are Oilive Oil, Sesame Oil, Almond Oil, Walnut Oil (pretty much any nut or seed oil), Palm Oil, Coconut Oil. All natural whole foods especially if they are pressed in cold process expeller presses and not heat or chemically processed extraction. i just don't see the need for processed, better than God created, foods. There always seems to be more risk than upside to them. Especially when they are invented by large agro-conglomerates like Unilver whose only motive is profit. Companies like that are not know for their commitment to people and health. Just better living through chemistry.

mmapags

i like land o lakes butter made with canola oil .. i believe its 50 calories for a tablespoon ..

Why would one use this over unmolested butter?

I'm guessing for the lower calorie load but did you know that Canola oil is one the most highly oxidative oils there is and helps in the formation of Low Density Lipids (the bad cholseterol)?

Canola oil is a hot mess. I avoid it and soybean oil at all costs.

Can I get an amen!! The wisdom of the 60s and 70s regarding these types of oils has been dramatically disproved!

AZKristi

Why would you want to use something made out of inedible chemicals when you can use something fresh from the farm? I don't consider butter substitutes "healthier" than butter. Just look at trans fats - when they were invented everyone thought, WOW, we can magically reduce the saturated fat in food. Turns out the unnatural trans fats are WAAAAYYYY worse that saturated fats. Thank goodness they are being removed from food! Stick with natural alternatives!

Olive oil, grapeseed oil, peanut oil are much healthier substitutions and still very natural / minimally processed.

I still use butter when its the only way to go, but mostly I use healthier oils.

For toast, I use land o lakes spreadable butter with olive oil. Its still butter but its mixed with olive oil to make it spreadable!

I don't really trust the oil sprays in an aerosol can because I have no idea what I'm getting. I found a great olive oil sprayer that I LOVE though! THis way, I know exactly what I'm getting!

Hayesgang

I cook with I can't belive its not butter spray! It is in a yellow bottle with the butter, and i get it at walmart or any grocery store. tastes just like butter, with 0 fat and 0 caloreis. I put it on all veggies, and use it to cook! It is so wonderful! def check it out!

I love I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray. I use it to steam veggies, on my fish and add it to recipes that call for butter or margarine. Be careful though - if you use a couple of sprays it doesn't add a significant amount of calories but a teaspoon has 20 calories. It can say "Zero Calories" according to Goverment regulations because it contains less then 5 calories per spray. TRICKY, TRICKY!!

rschmmidt

http://www.feedmeimcranky.com/2011/01/15/lies-damned-lies-butter-sprays/
[/quote]

Rilke - thank you so much for posting this!

I am really glad I asked this question. Thanks everyone, MFP is great.

anrose

Either Earth Balance or Smart Balance are great choices for alternatives because they do not contain any hydrogenation (trans fats). Butter itself is a saturated fat and does NOT lower your HDL levels. It increases the LDL (bad cholesterol) and virtually does not affect HDL.

beckys19

i like land o lakes butter made with canola oil .. i believe its 50 calories for a tablespoon ..

Why would one use this over unmolested butter?

I'm guessing for the lower calorie load but did you know that Canola oil is one the most highly oxidative oils there is and helps in the formation of Low Density Lipids (the bad cholseterol)?

Source for this info, please? I've never heard anything bad about canola oil before.

tladame

The only thing I would recommend is maybe to go with the unsalted butter.

Me too. Back when I was making all my daughter's baby food, quite a few of the recipes called for unsalted butter. I still use it today for certain things, and salted butter for other things. Gotta have real butter!

PinkEarthMama

I grew up eating Country Crock too! I used to love it... now I think it tastes funny!

Butter - in moderation - is not evil.

But don't go eating a whole stick of it

k8blujay2

Too be honest, Dr. Oz scared me away from margerine... and anything other than real butter. I can't eat the substitutes anymore, they just taste funny... I don't use butter all that often, though.

beckys19

i like land o lakes butter made with canola oil .. i believe its 50 calories for a tablespoon ..

Why would one use this over unmolested butter?

I've switched to it when I want toast with butter, and some other applications, like sauteing asparagus with granulated garlic. Pretty much where the butter flavor is VERY important to me but I don't want the saturated fats. The one that is 50 cals per T is the light version, IMHO I didn't really like that one as much as the regular full-fat version. So I'd say unless the saturated fats are really that much of an issue, just go with the real thing but keep it in balance with the rest of your diet. You can also DIY the spread by mixing your own butter and canola or olive oil. Though with the olive oil, make sure it doesn't have a strong taste. I made a batch that tasted, well, like butter and olive oil. Not really the most appetizing thing when together.


For normal stir-frys I use cooking spray, though I have to dig out my refillable pump oil sprayer that works on air pressure - I want to start cutting out all those aerosols too.

mmapags

i like land o lakes butter made with canola oil .. i believe its 50 calories for a tablespoon ..

Why would one use this over unmolested butter?

I'm guessing for the lower calorie load but did you know that Canola oil is one the most highly oxidative oils there is and helps in the formation of Low Density Lipids (the bad cholseterol)?

Source for this info, please? I've never heard anything bad about canola oil before.

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/new/canola.htm
http://balancedbites.com/2010/06/canola-oil-may-be-paleo-diet-approved-but-i-wont-eat-it.html
http://www.jctonic.com/include/healingcrisis/20rancid_oils.htm Canola oil is a highly processed polyunsaturated oil.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/healthy-oils/#axzz1mHUUG7D7
http://www.bhawkindustries.com/blank?pageid=41&catstart=0&prodstart=0

What I got off the 1st 2 pages of a google search.

mmapags

Either Earth Balance or Smart Balance are great choices for alternatives because they do not contain any hydrogenation (trans fats). Butter itself is a saturated fat and does NOT lower your HDL levels. It increases the LDL (bad cholesterol) and virtually does not affect HDL.

Butter is a saturated fat however, as I stated based on research including The Framingham Heart Study there is little relationship to dietary cholesterol vs. cardio cholesterol in the abscence of other significant factors like abnormally high carb consumption and obesity. The attached quote states how Dairy fat has been shown to be helpful in the production of cardio HDL.

"Which long-chain fats are best? A case can be made for dairy fats.

There is a clear association between eating dairy fats and having high HDL. Blood levels of trans-palmitoleic acid, an omega-7 trans-fat obtainable only by eating milk products from ruminants, is strongly associated in prospective cohort studies with higher HDL. [9b] Feeding experiments in guinea pigs confirm that butter oil increases HDL. [9]

Seth Roberts cut his coronary artery calcification score by 24% by eating a half-stick of butter per day; perhaps butter’s HDL-raising property deserves the credit. High dairy fat consumption is associated with improved health in prospective cohort studies, for instance much lower rates of diabetes and lower CRP levels. [9b]

The reason dairy fats work is uncertain. The mechanism could be via chylomicron breakdown, and other fats might work nearly as well. People who eat the most dairy fats probably eat high-fat diets that are low in omega-6 fats, and omega-6 fats reduce HDL; so the dairy fats could just be a marker for high-fat low-omega-6 diets. However, it’s possible that the ruminant trans-fat CLA is especially beneficial. It might not hurt to copy Seth, and eat a lot of butter."
Taken from The Perfect Health Diet website.

You might also find this interesting. The incidence of increase saturated fat and lower risk of heart disease is refered to in this article as a praradox.

http://www.ajcn.org/content/80/5/1102.full

beckys19

I'm guessing for the lower calorie load but did you know that Canola oil is one the most highly oxidative oils there is and helps in the formation of Low Density Lipids (the bad cholseterol)?

Source for this info, please? I've never heard anything bad about canola oil before.

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/new/canola.htm
<snip> 2nd entry deleted, page contains malware
http://www.jctonic.com/include/healingcrisis/20rancid_oils.htm Canola oil is a highly processed polyunsaturated oil.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/healthy-oils/#axzz1mHUUG7D7
http://www.bhawkindustries.com/blank?pageid=41&catstart=0&prodstart=0

What I got off the 1st 2 pages of a google search.

1st one has "is actually derived from the rapeseed, a member of the mustard family which is generally unfit for human consumption" This has been debunked by snopes http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/canola.asp I got as far as that line, and don't trust the rest (turnip, cabbage, radish, horseradish are also members of mustard family, too)
2nd had malware
3rd provided no links to research from a trusted source, claims if you heat omega-3s they break down into free radicals. Shall I only eat raw salmon, now too?
4th no sources
5th, pretty mush the same junk word for word debunked by snopes article I mentioned in #1.

Now, I don't take at face value all of the claims made by food processors about their respective products, but on this case, from what I could find, canola oil is not 'bad' for you, at least as far as we know currently.

Now, if someone does not want to use canola since it is more refined than other oils (for reasons of being 'greener' or eating food closer to the source, etc), that's fine.

I managed to find a short blurb on the Mayo clinic web page about this http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/canola-oil/AN01281
and I found Whole Food's take on it here
http://www.drtimdelivers.com/nihtalk11macmic082508/nihtalk11_files2/canola2WFM.pdf
General uptake of Whole Foods, it's ok but don't crank the burner to high -in other words, don't heat it so it smokes, which is not a good thing for any oil.

mmapags

The purpose of this thread was not really to debate Canola Oil but the wheterh or not a substitute for butter is nessesay. You may choose Canola Oil and that is your right and privilege. I don't and that is mine. As for some of the material you presented, I've included a link from Canolainfo.org. It states that Canola in indeed derived from a plant that was "developed from traditional rapeseed" and bred to have lower levels of erucic acid (can you say genetically engineered?).

Extraction: "Oil may be extracted using either hexane ("solvent") extraction or by "cold-pressing" (also referred to as "expeller pressing") Well I don't know about you but I'd sure like to know which I was consuming! I'd not be keen on ingesting Hexane!!
There is additional information here about the seeds being "heated slightly" (oxidized) and how it is "refined" and 'deodorized". Now, the question I have to ask myself is if this substance is such a great and edible thing for human beings, why does it need to be solvent extracted (in fairneess a small % is expeller pressed) heated, and deodorized. Olive Oil doesn't need that. Sesame Seed Oil doesn't need that, Butter doesn't need that. And this all from an organization whose mission is to extoll the benefits of Canola! Do what you think is best but not for me. I'll take the oils I listed a few posts back, thank you very much.

http://www.canolainfo.org/canola/index.php?page=6

jillyt85

The problem with substitutes is while they may be lower calorie and lower fat, they're not good for you. Real butter is far better than any substitute. Just like real sugar is better than splenda. It's all about moderation. My sister in law is a doctor and has explained it all to me before, but I can't remember everything she said. I just know that you want to eat REAL, not substitutes. To me, losing weight and becoming healthy is just that, becoming healthy. I want to make sure I'm filling my body with the best things I can (I'm still learning). It's not just the losing weight part. Anyone can lose weight, but not everyone can get HEALTHY and lose weight. Treat your body like a car. You wouldn't put fake oil and fake gasoline in it and expect it to work well for years for you, would you? okay, i really know nothing about cars, but I think that's right. anyways, I hope I helped somewhat.

Di3012

The problem with substitutes is while they may be lower calorie and lower fat, they're not good for you. Real butter is far better than any substitute. Just like real sugar is better than splenda. It's all about moderation. My sister in law is a doctor and has explained it all to me before, but I can't remember everything she said. I just know that you want to eat REAL, not substitutes. To me, losing weight and becoming healthy is just that, becoming healthy. I want to make sure I'm filling my body with the best things I can (I'm still learning). It's not just the losing weight part. Anyone can lose weight, but not everyone can get HEALTHY and lose weight. Treat your body like a car. You wouldn't put fake oil and fake gasoline in it and expect it to work well for years for you, would you? okay, i really know nothing about cars, but I think that's right. anyways, I hope I helped somewhat.

The problems lie, for me, in the high amount of calories in butter, hence why I use Clover Light. However, having said that, the amount I use is 7g per day on a sandwich and that is if I have a sandwich at all during the day.

I guess the amount I am using is minimal.

hungryPHATbunny

Can't believe it's not butter is absolutely fab, tastes great and 'buttery' without the transfata and calories...I have it every day!

acstansell

I was using Smart Balance buttery spread for both tub and stick. I was unimpressed with the taste, the consistency and how hard it was to spread. I'd used it for about a year, and I was on here one day and read a thread about chemical butter vs. real butter. Surprisingly, the calorie change is minimal and I eat so little butter, that it's not going to change my cholesterol that much. I'd rather eat the real butter and know that all I'm eating is salt, canola oil, and cream.