Butter v's Margarine

After posting my article on 'Eff the Resolutions'; I got a great response from Kyle Bryon, Nutritionist extraordinaire: here it is just in case you missed it

Hi Foxy Burd! Kyle Byron, Nutritionist here.

The butter vs. margarine debate. Lots to know before one can make an informed decision.

Butter Benefits:
- natural
- we need SOME saturated fats to live.

Butter Bad:
- the fat in it is mostly saturated fat. You only want maximum 1/3 of your fat calories to come from saturated fat. About 20-30% of your calories should come from fat. In a 2000 calorie diet therefore, about 10% of your calories (200) from saturated fat. So about 22 grams of saturated fat a day). 1 tbsp butter = 7 g saturated fats. Have a steak later or a few thumbs of cheese and you went over!

Margarine marvelous?
- made with mono and poly unsaturated fats that we need badly
- some have omega 3's which are the super fats
- some are lower calorie

Margarine mooooove over:
- unnatural. preservatives, stabilizers
- SOME have the EVIL transfats from the old way of hardening the oils (hydrogenation). These elevate your bad cholesterol and lower your good cholesterol
- too many omega 6 fats, which are better than saturated fats but still too high typically.... i know, confusing eh?


The controversy
- compounds in margarine proven safe for consumption
- most people are getting way too much saturated fat and not enough healthy fats, so why not get some good fats with margarine


What does Kyle do?
I used to be a big margarine guy. Somewhere recently I've shifted. Got rid of most of the artificial stuff in my diet and binned the margarine.

Therefore my saturated fat intake went up. To compensate I increased my intake of omega 3 fish oil.

When I am trying to lose weight for a fight, I really monitor my diet and monitoring fat is part of that job, so less butter.

What you need to do:
- no matter what, take 3-6 g a day of omega 3 fish oil or walnut oil
- if you chose margarine get one with as little trans fat as possible. don't buy the cheap stuff. In fact, get the expensive stuff with Omega 3 in it
- if you chose butter that day, try to keep the animal fat really low in your diet (yolks, red meat, cheese, cocconut oil, palm oil)
- if you are a margarine person, make your own salad drssing from olive oil and vingar and eliminate mayonaise. (this is an omega 6 battle)

Ok? Let me know if you have any questions!

Kyle

Ps next week I'll answer the question - when can I have a muffin and it won't hurt my progress? (yes there is a time!)

(image courtesy of www.esquire.com)