Butter? Still bad for you or has scientific info changed?

There just no strong evidence to suggest it is bad........lots of assumptions though based on weak evidence, personally I never considered natural saturated fat bad, it just didn't sound logical, and I still believe that and of course everything in moderation.

Butter is not man made...margarine is. I eat butter always...only buy and cook with it. Read a lot about butter verses margarine.....butter wins hands down...it contains nutrients and is actually benefitial in preventing some artery problems. My cholesterol numbers are: LDL... 71. My HDL is 69. So my numbers are great. Just Google butter verses what ever you are wondering about.

Butter isn'tt bad for you unless consumed in large amounts on thick toasted bread:happy: Umm...

what about things like I cant believe its not butter? are those considered better for you or the same as a margarine?

It is saturated fat and not recommended to consume too much of it.
It's still better than margarine.

Research Primal diet.

Big butter fan. Moderation, and for cooking, mixed with olive oil*, but the food tastes just so much better with it. Because it is actually REAL food.

Margarine = artificial cr*p with palm oil and other stuff they make soaps of. Never touch it.

Fat isn't bad. It's needed to absorb vitamins, for proper hormonal function, ect. However, to maintain healthy cholesterol levels, fat consumption needs to be limited. Butter is saturated fat, and saturated fat raises cholesterol levels more than anything else. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines recommend that saturated fat make up no more than 10% of your daily calories.

Are you saying that raising HDL is a bad thing. Also new science indicates that not all categories of LDL are harmful, some might even be protective, so I guess we would need to know how butter or saturated fat effects those sub fractions of LDL.

When I say raises cholesterol levels, I mean LDL in relation to HDL. And yes, the larger, less dense LDL particles are relatively benign, but the small dense particles can be pretty harmful. And yes, not all saturated fats are dangerous (stearic acid for example). However, as far as I know, there's no way to tell what kind of saturated fat is in your butter. Therefore, in my opinion, its a good rule of thumb to keep consumption of solid fats low, especially if your lipid profile is outside of a healthy range.

It depends somewhat on what your replacing with the saturated fat, if your replacing unsaturated fat for saturated, then the increase in HDL is minimal. If saturated fat is replacing carbohydrates and especially sugary refined carbs then more so. But saturated fat is the 900 lb gorilla for raising HDL as far as dietary fat is concerned.

How saturated fat effect cholesterol particle size has been extensively researched and basically if saturated fat is replacing carbohydrates, then you'll find that it reduces the small dence LDL particles for the larger more buoyant ones which automatically reduces triglycerides because that's were their found, in the small dense LDL particles, and it also lowers C-reactive protein, blood pressure and reduces insulin resistance.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/91/3/502.short

Replacement of saturated fat by polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat lowers both LDL and HDL cholesterol. However, replacement with a higher carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrate, can exacerbate the atherogenic dyslipidemia associated with insulin resistance and obesity that includes increased triglycerides, small LDL particles, and reduced HDL cholesterol. In summary, although substitution of dietary polyunsaturated fat for saturated fat has been shown to lower CVD risk, there are few epidemiologic or clinical trial data to support a benefit of replacing saturated fat with carbohydrate. Furthermore, particularly given the differential effects of dietary saturated fats and carbohydrates on concentrations of larger and smaller LDL particles, respectively, dietary efforts to improve the increasing burden of CVD risk associated with atherogenic dyslipidemia should primarily emphasize the limitation of refined carbohydrate intakes and a reduction in excess adiposity.

As far as the saturated fat in butter, about 1/2 is palmitic acid and about 1/2 of that amount is stearic and almost that amount is myristic and then in smaller but fairly equal amounts are lauric, capric, butyric acid the smaller chain isomers that burn mostly as immediate energy. You'll find studies that show palmitic acid, which as you probably know is found in palm tree oils like palm and coconut oil raises LDL except, when in the presence of oleic acid a monounsaturated fat, the one that's in olive oil and butter has 3 times as much oleic as it does palmitic and as you also probably know stearic doesn't seem to do anything as far as raising cholesterol levels and that's probably due to the fact that it is also used as immediate energy (ATP) and doesn't get fully digested then stored via the liver like most fats. Personally I think butter especially organic from grass fed cattle, which is what I use is loaded with CLA and vitamin A and quite a few other pretty good minerals and vitamins.

Butter = 2 ingredients: cream, salt
Margarine = Too many ingredients, 1/2 of which I cannot pronounce

I choose butter in moderation.