What's your opinion on...
I was in a discussion with a nurse recently who stated I was wrong to feed my child unsalted butter. Personally with the risks of trans fats and knowing just how synthetic a process margarine is, I would rather go for butter; in moderation of course. What are your views?
I thought we could start some opinion based threads...
I was in a discussion with a nurse recently who stated I was wrong to feed my child unsalted butter. Personally with the risks of trans fats and knowing just how synthetic a process margarine is, I would rather go for butter; in moderation of course. What are your views?
I agree.
I would prefer butter than margarine, since trans fat has more health issue, like lower the level of HDL and increase coronary heart disease.
But I think the amount of consumption is more important.public/style_emoticons/default/offtopic2.gif
Have you ask the nurse about why you was wrong to feed your child unsalted butter? or you have guessed it?
Regards,
Hadi
Interested in the answers by the way.
Both are not healthful.
Yes you're right I reckon. But my thoughts are that I'd prefer a small amount of something which tastes nice which is bad for me rather than something which tastes nasty and is bad for me.
Oh the nurse
On a slightly different subject there was news item on the radio this morning that says that the use of nano particles in food will lead to virtually fat free chocolate that tastes the same! I think I'll wait and see on that one. If anyone knows anymore about this please post!
I have had similar discussions with people who know things "must be true it was in the newspapers". I would always go with butter as other posters have said better a little of the real thing than a little of a poor imitation and that goes for chocolate too!
On a slightly different subject there was news item on the radio this morning that says that the use of nano particles in food will lead to virtually fat free chocolate that tastes the same! I think I'll wait and see on that one. If anyone knows anymore about this please post!
Listening to the Today programme?
I find this interesting. On one hand, I am, I suppose a former nanotechnologist. My PhD is in supramolecular chemistry which can be a similar branch of science. That's where my issue is. It can be similar. Nanotechnology encompasses such wide subject areas from a 'bottom up' molecular approach (as per supramolecular chemistry) a 'top down' approach (as in making smaller and smaller 'things' or making materials on a small scale) and a 'top down' more biological approach. Every application has it's merits and I suspect its risks. I would say that every application needs to be judged on its safety and its merits; perhaps this is where a 'super HACCP' meets chemical, physical and biological science could take a role?
That said, I'm sure they wouldn't advertise it in this way but a crisp manufacturer is using salt which has been made using a supramolecular style approach. I know a bit about how it's done (I went for an interview at the manufacturer) and I have no concerns about the safety, in fact it's a fantastic thing as it's reducing salt intake for millions of people, however, if you told someone that nanotechnology was already in use in their food would they be happy? Interesting question I think. I worry that this lack of openness could lead to a backlash.
I thought we could start some opinion based threads...
I was in a discussion with a nurse recently who stated I was wrong to feed my child unsalted butter. Personally with the risks of trans fats and knowing just how synthetic a process margarine is, I would rather go for butter; in moderation of course. What are your views?
It must be known that there are two kinds of transfats- the natural and the artificial.
Butter contains the natural transfats known is vaccenic acid while margarine made with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil contains the artificial transfat called the elaidic acid.....
Vaccenic acid being natural transfat had therapeutic effect on the body
http://en.wikipedia....i/Vaccenic_acid
While Elaidic acid is harmful
http://en.wikipedia....ki/Elaidic_acid
So Butter is healthier to consume than margarine...
There fore its logical to
Keep on feeding your child unsalted butter...
Thanks for your comments Chocky! I agree!
I though it was better for you?Why eat something artificially hydrogenated Simon? Why not eat the Lurpak???
Don't know what hydrogenated is? It sounds good though.
Oh the nurse
. She was just annoyed because I expressed dismay that she was feeding her 12 month old a high salt, high sugar diet (including lots of biscuits, bread and cheese) and it got her back up. She picked on the fact that I give my child unsalted butter (occasionally) and was spouting off about how she only fed her child margarine. By that point the discussion was just getting silly and I realised I wasn't going to change her mind. She also thought she knew more about food and food safety than a food technologist. I decided to leave her to it considering she knew so much...
Wow. I guess you can't tell a nurse they're wrong!
I'm with you GMO: butter all the way. If I'm going to do fat, then give me some real dairy at least.
I though it was better for you?
Don't know what hydrogenated is? It sounds good though.
Hydrogenation is taking some of the double bonds in unsaturated fats and making them into single bonds by adding hydrogen. In most naturally occurring oils, there are lots of double bonds (that's what the unsaturated thing means). Now these double bonds cannot freely rotate unlike single bonds. These double bonds can be 'cis' (basically the rest of the chain is off the same side) or 'trans' (where they come off opposite sides). The double bonds mean that the chains can't stack together well which is one of the reasons most unsaturated fats are oils, saturated fats can stack well (ie where there is no double bonding), chains with cis bonds cannot, but ones with trans double bonds can still stack pretty well.
An explanation of trans and cis.
Now to make oil into margarine, you need to get rid of some of those double bonds or else you won't be able to have a solid. The problem is that with catalytic hydrogenation, you can just result in a change from trans to cis (isomerise) rather than a proper hydrogenation. Formerly this might have been seen as a good thing by the manufacturers as you get the fat to be solid without getting rid of as many double bonds. The problem is in recent years, trans double bonded fats, ie trans fats have been implicated in a range of diseases.
Now trans fats occur naturally but in small quantities and margarine manufacturers have made some progress in cutting down on the trans fats but the ones that still occur will be artificial. There is some suggestion that natural trans fats aren't harmful or may even be beneficial.
I hope that helps. Of course I didn't go into this with the nurse. I didn't want to make her feel inadequate.
Ajay