Do you remember this from my last post?
“It’s better for our bodies if we cut down on saturated fat...
Butter out of the fridge softens but doesn’t become completely runny —that’s because butter is saturated fat. “
And there is the conundrum.
Some scientists believe butter is not the baddy it’s been cut out to be and doesn’t have the terrible effects on our heart - as a saturated fat - that we were led to believe.
Michael Mosley and his team - see The 5:2 Diet, The Blood Sugar Diet & ifast12 - have shown up-to-date research refutes this. I quote:
“We used to think that if you ate saturated fat, it raised your cholesterol levels and increased your risk of heart attack. It turns out that dairy fats don’t work like that in your bloodstream. When you look at all the big studies, the proof that butter is bad for you isn’t there.”
Nutritionists from the Blood Sugar Diet & ifast12 explain the conundrum thus:-
Butter is rich in a particular type of fatty acid called heptadecanoic acid, also known as margaric acid. (It’s a shame it sounds like margarine, just to confuse matters.) It is a type of saturated fat found in dairy fat, rye, and some fish. Lots of studies have shown that margaric acid reduces your risk of diabetes and heart disease.
So butter is allowed back in class, but has to sit at the front where teacher can keep a close eye on him...
And we know omega 3 ( found in fish and walnuts for instance) is very good for us but what about the lesser-known omega 6?
6 is the one to avoid. It is found in corn, safflower and sunflower oils. And we have a tendency to eat too much of it. And eating too much 6 is potentially being linked to cancer, heart disease and arthritis. Improving our health by substituting omega-3 fats for omega-6 fats in our diets is the way forward. Eating fish is the way to go.
When you’re buying canned tuna, which is really good for our health, it’s so important to look at the label to see whether it’s in brine, olive oil or vegetable oil.
Products sold as healthy often contain vegetable oils that are so altered by processing that their health-giving properties have been stripped away. So go for tuna in olive oil every time!
Olive oil makes all food taste delicious and it’s a natural product. Furthermore olive oil contains no cholesterol, chemicals nor artificial additives. It’s especially high in monounsaturated fat, which may reduce harmful LDL cholesterol and help maintain healthy HDL cholesterol levels.
Tired of margarine? Still bothered by butter? Try this spread instead:
How to make a healthy yogurt spread
Ingredients
32 oz Fage 5% Greek yogurt
3 tablespoons olive oil (I use cold-pressed)
Method
1 Line a medium-sized strainer with a paper filter from a cafetière. Hang it over a bowl to catch watery drops.
2 Spoon the yogurt into the prepared strainer and let it stand in the fridge, covered, for 24 hours.
3 The next day put the drained yogurt in a mixing bowl. Gradually add the 3 tablespoons of olive oil to the yogurt. Stir constantly until all the oil and yogurt are well blended.
4 You can use it straight away as a truly healthy spread or keep it chilled.
5 Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
You can use this healthy spread as an alternative to salad dressing or as a topping or marinade for steamed vegetables, grilled chicken or fish.
1 tablespoon of this spread is 32 cals
With a bit of luck we can now all make informed decisions about which fats are good for us and which are not.
A good guide for a healthier heart is to have a lower saturated fat intake. Instead ingest more unsaturated fat, especially olive oil, peanut oil, fish, olives, avocados and nuts. Eat two fish meals each week to up the omega-3 fatty acids in your diet.
And enjoy the lovely rich flavour of olive oil on salads and in cakes. When I'm baking carrot cake I use gluten-free flour to avoid wheat which breaks down to sugar. I use truvia - sweetener - in place of added sugar and olive oil as it's a safe fat and makes the cake extra moist. A perfect treat!
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