The issue on which fat is better and why takes the "butter vs margarine" debate to the next level.
Olive oil has been proven to decrease fibrinogen levels (which is a good thing in preventing inflammation of the heart), and is also a good source of natural vitamin E and phytosterols, all of which make olive oil an excellent source of dietary fat. But with its numerous categories, ascertaining quality can be confusing. The comprehensive post by Aaron_F is useful in shedding light on this matter.
What do we know about fat? If the words "Trans fat" or "hydrogenated fat" appear on your food label, then these foods are to be avoided like the plague. Also, heat damage to fat (and to protein and carbs.... recall the recent acrylamide scare) can render the fat quite toxic. For this reason the use of wet-heat cooking methods (e.g. boiling and steaming and its derivatives like poaching, stewing etc) are preferred over dry-heat methods like roasting, grilling and oil-frying owing to the higher risk of heat damage in foods when cooked with dry-heat methods.
Butter, good old butter, from a "raising blood lipid" perspective is supposed to be the healthiest amongst the lot if you consider this rather recent piece of news:
J. Nutr. 132:3642-3649, December 2002
Human Nutrition and Metabolism
Butter Differs from Olive Oil and Sunflower Oil in Its Effects on Postprandial Lipemia and Triacylglycerol-Rich Lipoproteins after Single Mixed Meals in Healthy Young Men1
Nadia Mekki*, Monique Charbonnier*, Patrick Borel, Jeannie Leonardi*, Christine Juhel*, Henri Portugal** and Denis Lairon*2
* Unité 476-Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Human Nutrition and Lipids, National Institute of Health and Medical Research, Université de la Méditerranée, 13009 Marseille, France Unité Vitamines-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Clermont-Ferrand, France ** Laboratoire Central d’Analyses, Hôpital Ste Marguerite, Marseille, France
2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
[email protected].
Accumulation of postprandial triacylglycerol-rich lipoproteins is generated by assimilation of ingested dietary fat and has been increasingly related to atherogenic risk. Nevertheless, the influence of different kinds of dietary fatty acids on postprandial lipid metabolism is not well established, except for (n-3) polyunsaturated long-chain fatty acids. Our goal was to evaluate the effects of test meals containing a common edible fat source of saturated (butter), monounsaturated (olive oil) or (n-6) polyunsaturated (sunflower oil) fatty acids on postprandial lipid and triacylglycerol-rich lipoprotein responses. After a 12-h fast, 10 healthy young men ingested mixed meals containing 0 g (control) or 40 g fat, provided as butter, olive oil or sunflower oil in a random order. Fasting and postmeal blood samples were collected for 7 h. The no-fat test meal did not elicit any change over baseline except for plasma phospholipids, insulin and nonesterified fatty acids. Conversely, the three fat-containing meals elicited bell-shaped postprandial changes (P < 0.05) in serum triacylglycerols, free and esterified cholesterol, and nonesterified fatty acids. The butter meal induced a lower postprandial rise of triacylglycerols in serum and chylomicrons (incremental AUC, mmol·h/L: 0.72) than the two unsaturated oils (olive oil: 1.6, sunflower oil: 1.8), which did not differ. Circulating chylomicrons were smaller after the butter meal than after the two vegetable oil meals. The in vitro susceptibility of circulating chylomicrons to hydrolysis by postheparin plasma was higher after sunflower oil than after butter or olive oil. We conclude that butter results in lower postprandial lipemia and chylomicron accumulation in the circulation of young men than olive or sunflower oils after consumption of a single mixed meal.
Perhaps, data based on 10 healthy young (French?) men might not be applicable to other populations, that by and large, tend to be very obesed and large... but this study is a start to many, I hope, about the virtues of fat and which fat to use and for what reasons.
And according to little snippets here and there, butter is a healthy oil for cooking since its degree of saturation makes it the least susceptible to heat damage (Anyone want to verify this? I've also read that macademia oil has a rather high smoking point exceeding that of butter by quite far...)?
Thus, my use of butter when frying eggs, meat etc and even then on the lowest heat-setting possible. Lower heat cooking still will get your food cooked but with less heat damage and protein denaturation, perhaps.
To further exalt good old butter (I don't own shares in the dairy industry, by the way...), saturated fat is purported to increase testosterone levels (and other hormone levels too). Mainstream media says that this is a bad thing but my opinion is that conversion of testosterone to DHT is the bad thing. Furthermore, increasing dietary fat to increase natural hormone levels will only occur if your fat intake was low to the point that hormone production was compromised. If you hormone levels are already healthy, taking any extra fat will not push your hormone levels to supraphysiological levels. But, since butter came out number one in terms of postprandial triacylglycerol-rich lipoproteins generation, how then can it "clog-up" my arteries? Or perhaps, how can butter be any worse than say, olive oil, or whatever vegetable oil that is purportedly, superior to butter in terms of artery-clogging ability?
Personally, butter and extra-virgin, cold-pressed olive oil are my main sources of dietary fat. Also, if you can, the use of mayonnaise (the real thing made from blending egg yolk with olive oil and not the low-fat scourge on many a supermarket shelf....) also is an excellent source of fat. To top it off, I take fish oil in capsules (try to get these certified free of heavy metals, PCBs and all such contaminants) and believe you me, I've never felt better my whole life.
Take note though, my daily use of antioxidants - both fat and water soluble types. I dare say that with judicious use of antioxidants, one's body would be much better able to tolerate all sorts of insidious poisoning (e.g. smog, car fumes, heat-damaged food, just to name a few...) in addition to the ills and spills of being an obligative aerobe.
Awaiting any and all feedback.
Godspeed, and happing HSTing.
olyunsaturated ratio is quite a bit less. it's about 6:5. (this is the case even with the expensive unrefined versions at a health food store.) is this good enough? olive is i think nearly 4:1. we could switch to some tropicals, but cost is again an issue, and that moves us back to saturated fats. we might just have to change our cooking methods?
not sure if the rest of the family would care to do that though. butter is a possibility for our non-chinese foods. we'd all prefer not to go back to lard either. (and since we usually eat vegetarian, that's not really an option either)
