Hi,
I've managed to change to wholemeal bread, but find it really difficult to give up butter on my toast in a morning. Anyone got any recommendations for the healthiest spread to use, that also tastes okay? Thanks.
Healthy Eating: Hi, I've managed to... - British Heart Fou...
Healthy Eating
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BC4ever
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I know we are told to avoid saturated fat, but I am not happy about the substitutes. I compromise by only spreading the butter thinly, or buttering one side of a sandwich.
• in reply toRufusScamp
heard peanut butter is healthy . But wonder if this is correct?
I use Flora Light. 100% veg oil - no palm and only 5.7% saturated fat. Tastes good to me
generally speaking, butter is healthier than spreads because it’s just butter with no additives. Spreads have things in them to make them palatable and spreadable - you need to read the label to find out what they contain.
Ten grams of butter, which is what you’d have on toast, isn’t very much fat in an overall diet.
My advice . .if you like butter continue to use it. If you feel uneasy about doing that just use slightly less, or even try a sprinkle of olive oil instead if you are making savoury sandwiches. Otherwise In my view there is no substitute for the taste of butter, and certainly not in those awful spreads, which contain all sorts of additives and might do you more harm then good.
I use butter but in moderation, however I have reduced my consumption of red meat, eat lots of fruit, veg, seeds and pulses and avoid highly processed foods, cooking from scratch for pretty much every meal. We eat very healthily but still enjoy our meals.
I get on pretty well with Low Low, but I also found it pretty easy to switch to low-fat milk (in fact, the full-fat stuff now tastes odd to me).
My wife can't give up butter, though, so it's clearly somewhat of an individual thing. Just find another place to reduce your saturated fat intake.
What about Benecol, "guaranteed to reduce cholesterol"? See Qualiop's post of six years ago: healthunlocked.com/bhf/post...
I love Benecol (and Actimel) just because they taste great. If they help, all the better. 😀
Interesting thread you linked to. I was diagnosed with IBS when I was about 30. At about 50 I was diagnosed with depression and put on SSRIs (escitalopram). IBS symptoms promptly disappeared. So do SSRIs affect IBS, or was I misdiagnosed and it was depression/anxiety all along? (I suspect the later, but who knows.)
Simple answer: depression/anxiety can trigger IBS
I have a friend with IBS and it was treated successfully by her Gp prescribing SSRIs .
My husband took Benecol for 4 years when bloods taken it made not a single bit of difference it's just a marketing ploy
Yes much better to eat natural butter! People in the past used to eat a lot more butter and saturated animal fats in general, and and there wasn't half as much heart disease as there is today. Too much sugar, seed oils, carbs are the main culprits, all inflammatory and not at all good for the heart!
People in the past also used to have a lot more active lifestyle and less access to processed food. Maybe that explains a lot too.
heartuk.org.uk/healthy-livi... "Benecol's spreads, yogurts and drinks have been awarded the stamp of approval from HEART UK. "
BHF advice: bhf.org.uk/informationsuppo...
I too have switched to whole meal and Lidl’s seeded whole meal is good for price and taste. My rehab dietician advice was to use an olive oil based spread. I loved butter. The best spread I’ve found so far is M&S Reduced Fat Olive Spread made with 21% olive oil and retails at £1.50 for 500g. Even the children like it and they also love butter.
I have been using bertolli olive oil spread I was always a butter woman but this is just as good
Not a morning thing, but I use a silicon basting brush to apply a thin coating of evoo to my toast, and it is so good! But, I don't know anything about an olive oil "spread".
Proper, full fat butter this is from a cow that is farmed on regenerative (best) or organic (good enough) farm is probably the healthiest spread you can get.
Yes, butter was found to be much healthier than was claimed years ago. It is completely natural and tastes good. Don't spread it an inch thick on toast ten times a day and it is better than the alternatives. Its easy to put on chunks when it is hard so the Marks and Spencer softer butter is useful in winter. Nothing added but the way it is churned means it is easy to spread straight from the fridge.
Flora proactive Buttery is nice use it myself
I use Flora proactive Buttery too. I live tge taste and it's more natural than a lot of spreads
Buttery is pretty highly processed.
Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed, Sunflower, Linseed in Variable Proportions), Water, Coconut Fat, Emulsifier (Sunflower Lecithin), Faba Bean Preparation, Salt (1,3%), Natural Flavourings, Colour (Beta Carotene)
Rapeseed oil is terrible for your health!! 😞
Which is why I am surprised that some recommend it . Mind you compared to some of the other spreads available it is as good as olive oil.
I've tried other spreads which are not the best in taste,so I have butter but spread it thin
Pure butter every time. Just read about all the rubbish in spreads, just use it in moderation.
I still use butter as there are so many additives in spreads and butter tastes so much better. I compromise and spread it thinly on toast.
I sometimes use humous in place of butter in sandwiches, it’s quite nice with salad and meat fillings.
I usually use butter in baking, otherwise I use olive oil or olive spreads in cooking as much as possible.
Olive spread just as good for toast but not for cooking.
Butter from grass fed cows. Don't worry about that processed stuff. (My personal opinion only 😋). In all seriousness, I have tried to cut out as much bread a d toast as possible, so have an extra boiled egg instead of two toast, a bowl of fresh fruit salad for breakfast, maybe porridge. But I won't give up butter 😊
Cut out the toast is the answer as above!
use butter thinly , lo fat mayonnaise or mustard if it’s a sandwich
it’s only my opinion but … have butter on your toast. I believe that the stress of worrying about something so minutae probably puts more invisible stress impact on your body than any impact a bit of butter will have
I also do not trust scientist created ‘spreads’ …. margarine was originally invented to be animal food and was repurposed as human ‘alternative ‘ spreads when it had detrimental effects on animals
Be healthy be well have everything in moderation
hi there. Although processed we use olive oil spread light (the good stuff) and v occasionally get butter. We try to eat from scratch stuff in general. I know my husband has cut out dairy mostly which isn’t necessarily good as that can affect bones as he’s not eating his weight in cruciferous greens or doing gentle weights. Balance is good.
My cardiac rehab programme (I had a bypass) said they would never say never have anything except one thing- butter. For them, it was totally off the menu. They recommended Utterly Butterly. I don’t have much toast these days, but when I do, that’s what I use!
Ask them to give you the research. I'm guessing they have just been trained to say it as they are still working on the ancient low fat diet mode. Most current research says to avoid heavily processed foods like spreads. The NHS seems to be still operating on the dietary fats create high cholesterol levels when recent (actually including not so recent research) shows that cholesterol levels are not directly linked to fat in the diet. Also try to find the recent research where they looked at the cholesterol levels of thousands of people who died of heart attacks and found there was no correlation between high cholesterol levels and heart attack deaths.
True on the cholesterol levels. I only have butter, spreadable for toast etc and hard for cooking, (when I cook) especially on mashed spuds and veggies. I even have a pouring of cream on my cereal. My overall cholesterol levels are normal. My partner on the other hand has low fat spread, Benecol and the like drinks and has a much higher level than me. As the song says ' It goes to show you never can tell'.
We discussed this. The cardiac rehab team have access to all the latest research - on both nutrition and fitness- but can only advise based on a thorough body of evidence. In short, there is not enough research and evidence to go against the current position on saturated fats causing heart problems. Of course that may change over time, but for now, that is the NHS position (as told to me, anyway). So I am aware of evidence that challenges that advice, and there is lots currently on inflammation and heart disease at the moment, for example, but that body of evidence must be greater before officially imparted. For me personally, I have a decision to make, and I’ve made it on the wider body of evidence. In practice I never eat butter and only very rarely do I eat Utterly Butterly or indeed have any similar spread.
You need to tell them off then 😂
Ingredients
Utterly butterly has terrible ingredients. IT is Ultra processed.
See above for my response!
I would personally say real butter other spreads have so much rubbish put in them to make them last and also spreadable if you have it in moderation you should be fine I know it’s a pain to put on toast I tend to leave it out of fridge a bit before I have my toast which makes it easier to spread
I'm using Lidl s Danpak, butter with rapeseed oil to make it spreadable. Don't use much but years ago my doctor said butter......in moderation!
Rapeseed oil is one of the worst things you can eat! It's highly sprayed with pesticides and is very inflammatory due to it being high in omega 6. Just eat real butter from cows who eat grass as, nature intended, and you'll be ok.
Totally agree, I sent you private message response. As I have been verbally abused in the past.
I use organic butter. It is pure and unadulterated.
I can’t take Statins so I use Benacol . It works and tastes ok . After my bypass I found healthy eating was a small price to pay to be alive . I still have the odd chocolate cake or sausage even but not regularly .
Whoever said Utterly Buttery was healthier than real butter should look at the ingredients of this ultra processed food! Just use pure butter in moderation.
Utterly Butterly ingredients: Water, Vegetable Oils in varying proportions (Rapeseed, Sustainable Palm, Sunflower), Buttermilk, Modified Maize Starch, Salt, Emulsifiers - E471, Sunflower Lecithin, Preservative – Potassium, Sorbate, Acid - Lactic Acid, Colours - Annatto Bixin, Curcumin, Flavouring.
I mentioned the ingredients up thread for Buttery. I think they have changed Buttery several times in order to appeal to the vegan market. It is classified as Ultra processed food and has as many calories and fat as the real thing so I don't see the advantage in using something like this spread over an entirely natural product like butter.
As for Utterly Buttery the ingredients sound awful. I suspect people use it because it spreads easily.
lots of differing opinions here! Many different opinions given to people by medical heart specialists.This happens with everything from diet to medications. It’s a bit of luck and a bit of judgement. I’ve got to the stage where I think..MODERATION in all things ( well most😉😉)
it’s called balance for a reason, look up what your rad is , but try to get it close to those figures.
Avoid spreads with rapeseed and or palm oil. Those don’t do you any good.
Fry with sunflower oil or virgin olive oil.
You should never fry with sunflower oil, it is extremely sensitive to heat and when heated to even low temps creates carcinogens! It's one of the worst things to cook with, coconut oil, olive oil (but not at very high temps), butter, ghee, lard, dripping are all stable at even high temperatures and don't become carcinogenic/inflammatory..... These are all the fats our ancestors used to use and they didn't suffer anywhere near the amount of heart disease we do today!!
I think they did as they died at least 10 years younger than us back in the 1950s. Think most cause of death was heart failure which meant a myraid of things at the time. Its the availability of stents, bypass surgery, valve replacement plus the huge advance in modern medicine which is keeping us alive for so long. Our ancestors scoffed fried bread, large fries cooked with lard and oodles of butter amongst the cigarettes and booze though they worked much harder and were not overweight as they walked considerably more. Still we should be so thankful for modern medicational techniques.
I’ve looked at alternatives and many of them contain more fat and sugars than actual butter. I go with the lighter butter with reduced salt such as lurpak or anchor.
Sent you private message
Hi BC4ever, you’ve received a wide variety of responses here.
To add my pennies worth… butter is high in saturated fat but, if you crave it, a thin scraping shouldn’t do too much harm. Personally, I prefer nut or seed ‘butters’. You can buy them or make your own. Just ensure they have nothing added. There’s no need for added sugar etc. although a little salt is nice.
A good peanut butter or tahini is delicious on its own or as a base for other toppings such as banana.
As others have said I still use butter but spread thinly. The lighter Lurpak or even better and cheaper Aldi Norpack lighter
I use light Olive spread from Aldi or Lidl. Haven’t used butter for years.
My daughter, who is vegan, recommended Naturli, which comes in both spread and block form. It tastes just like butter, and is stocked by Sainsburys but probably other major supermarkets too.
Naturli is Ultra High processed. It contains rapeseed oil shea butter (often used in cosmetics) coconut oil and carrot juice. Surely not a patch on butter although I appreciate vegans might like it as it is plant based. However as the ingredients come from the far corners of the world they are not saving the planet. However if they don't like the idea of milk then fair enough.
Thanks, Devonian. I agree butter tastes better, but it's less heart-healthy. You're right that most of the oils in vegan spreads are problematic in several ways - coconut oil being a case in point as it's among the most saturated of fats. And although rapeseed is healthier than many, it's environmentally costly. Olive is healthiest of all the oils according to most research, but it's causing serious environmental damage in Europe and the Med, and there is now an olive disease doing catastrophic damage to the industry. Fats are an important part of our diets - what are we to do? Perhaps use as little as possible each time....
Moderation in al things I think is the watchword. These days, as with eggs, butter and milk, the products are only considered problematic if eaten in excess,.
Oh, and Naturli contains only natural ingredients, with the only additive being lecithin - a plant-based emulsifier. It spreads well and I use the block form for cooking.
As far as I'm aware it's now thought that butter is more healthy than heavily processed spreads - check it out online. Like most things dietary advice has changed dramatically over the last 10 to 20 years. Dr Jason Fung is good he's, a kidney or diabetes specialist from Canada who does an interesting book or you tube videos on diets etc. Also check out all the advice most Drs are pushing now re. The Mediterranean diet (uses butter rather than spreads) - The Pioppi Diet is good book/you tube video to look at its about research and constructing a Mediterranean diet.
It appears that most of the stuff we were taught about eating healthily years ago was wrong - spreads, fruit juice, low fat diets. Unfortunately NHS dieticians and Drs (in the main) haven't caught up yet (a bit like the number of decades it took them to accept the research on stomach ulcers ).
The latest Flora buttery is amazing
Please look at the ingredients. It is ultra processed and contains rapeseed oil and coconut .It has as many calories as butter and as much fat.
Rapeseed is a good oil and the Flora is 100% plant based plus only 28g of saturates per 100g compared with 51g in butter. Nothing bad in it at all.
you seem to have opened the floodgates with your question! so here is my pennyworth
I have never trusted the vegetable-based alternative spreads due to suspicions about the process of converting a liquid oil into a solid fat and the effects of the product on our bodies - so I have always continued to use butter and lard, but in lower quantities wherever possible
at one point I made a spread by whisking butter and olive oil together, it was good for sandwiches etc and spread better than butter when straight from the fridge - but for something's there is no substitute for butter
at 59 an angiogram showed I had clear arteries, 10 years later I hope they are much the same, we await results of a recent angiogram for my husband - draw what conclusions you will, but my guiding principle is moderation with treats sometimes and avoidance of what I don't like!
Saturated fats are bad for you.
Ultra processed foods are bad for you.
100% natural botulinum toxin is very very very bad for you.
Personally I'm going to go with the recommendations of the people that studied it for a long time. (Doesn't mean they're right; just that they put more effort into it than I did.)
Saturated fats aren't bad for you!
Our bodies are made up of a high amount of saturated fats (and cholesterol), so how can they be bad for you??
I skip breakfast altogether. If I get hungry I have a mug of coffee. I find I can go from 6pm until midday with no food. It's supposed to be good for you and certainly works for me.
I use Asda olive spread as it has 21% olive oil and fewer additives than most spreads(fewer than Bertolli). I do still use butter sometimes - eg on jacket potatoes- but I like the fact that the spread increases my intake of olive oil, which is also important.
I would just consider looking at other areas of diet i.e look at carbs and how bread etc turns into starch/sugar and question is butter dairy that bad in comparison Dr David Unwin a well known GP is worth listening to just a thought
If the rest of your meals are healthy then a thin spread of butter on your toast is going to be OK. Spreadable butters have additives, better to stick with butter. Peanut butter has less fats, but is high in sugar.
Back in the 60s and 70s we were told to stop using butter and use margarine because sat fat clogs our arteries. Approx 40 years later, they found that the margarines had fats in them that were either trans-fats or capable of turning into trans fats when heated and those fats are extremely dangerous and are now banned in the USA and probably here too. They still state that you should replace sat fat with unsat fat, but thankfully those capable of converting to trans fat have been weeded out. You hear very little about this because the don't like admitting that they made a massive mistake decades ago which cost millions of people quality years of their lives. I am not giving any advice here, but stating that doctors and scientists seem to keep getting things badly wrong which affects our lives and any advice they give now could be reversed in the future when new research comes out. Sorry if that sounds negative.
I've trained my palate to think that Benacol or whatever the stuff with plant sterol is called is OK -- in fact it actually can reduce LDL.
That said, a thin spread of butter is unlikely to make a significant difference.
Surely a lot of these "butter substitutes' come under the headingheading of Ultra Processed. I'd much rather eat something I enjoy in moderation and is also a natural product.
So no one has bread and dripping anymore lol, anyone remember the chip pan that lived on top of ovens and deep fried almost everything in pure lard. Then almost over night sunflower oil was the trendy thing to cook your chips in. Since the 70s home made chips never tasted the same.
My Nan used to give us toast and dripping and we loved it. Braun and tongue too. Ewww 🦊x
I do. Get it from my local butcher and it's great. I don't gorge on it though, everything in moderation.
butter in moderation. It’s healthier than a lot of the substitutes which taste vile! I love a slice of dry seedy toast with half a mashed banana on it for breakfast. If baked beans going on it then no butter needed or scrambled egg. With everything it’s a case of getting used to it. I find white bread sticky and smelly now. Take care 🦊x
Earth Balance is a very good butter substitute. But I don't think it would harm you to use butter and spread it thinly.
Being allergic or intolerant to cows milk, I use Flora plant butter, the taste is the most like real butter that I have found. I use it for sweet things EG: if I want a rare jam sandwich. For egg on toast, I fry the egg in extra virgin olive oil (use a thermometer) and pour it all on gluten free seeded toast. Extra virgin olive oil is my go-to oil for everything.
I must add that olive oils have different flavours, you may need to try a few before you find your favourite
keep taking the butter
Initially we are all advised to use a butter substitute spread but I read research that proved using butter was better than any spreads because of the additives they put into spreads. My Cardio team agreed 👍
I use olive oil on my toast. Tastes pretty nice. Italians cant understand why we put butter on our toast. I think they have a point though, butter tastes ok but cant compete with olive oil on toast.
On another note, rapeseed oil is recommended on the continent, US, NHS despite people saying it is not good. It is hard to get one objective view because most of the research is flawed in one sense or another. Researchers love to prove a point by dismissing a theory and presenting a new one- often relying on very small sample sizes so be aware. All I know, my cholesterol was ultra low on statins and mainly plant diet - since I have started to add animal protein and fat- it did increase while still taking the statins. So, there is definitely a link with diet and cholesterol levels in my case.
You cant turn left or right, but anything in moderation is not bad - peace.
From what I've read DONT eat margarine just eat less butter.
Why give it up. If you were eating it by the spoonful from the tub I’d be worried! Everything in moderation - it’s the cumulative affect you need to be wary of. So if you’re not making dishes filled with butter and eating it every day, then there’s no need to stop spreading butter on your toast!
It’s the same with sugar.
Well done for changing, keep an eye on the bread label though for the amount of ingredients, less is better. I still use butter and will never change to margarine, butter is only made from milk, no additives. I think just use a bit less if it's really an issue.
Moderation . That's all you need to know. During the first few months after my heart attack I was eating hardly any fats, skimmed milk, margarine, low fat pizza. God I was miserable. But now I'm back to enjoying my food with normal butter, milk, etc etc.
But it's all about Moderation, as long as you don't eat a slab of butter daily, fry everything in lard, eat processed food ( a lot) then you'll be fine.
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