You may be surprised to learn that butter is the bad boy lurking in your fridge!
Luckily, making the switch from butter to margarine is an easy and effective change to reduce the unhealthy saturated fat in your family’s diet.
Did you know that butter contains around 50% saturated fat?! That’s not good news for your family’s health. Your children are currently consuming twice the recommended maximum levels of saturated fat.*
Most of us use some sort of spread everyday - on toast, our sandwiches, and in cooking. If you use butter in this way, you are adding a lot of saturated fat to your diet.
Luckily, swapping to margarine on your toast and sandwiches could remove a whopping 3 kilos of this bad fat from your diet in one year!
In Australia, margarine contains a maximum of 20% saturated fat making it a much healthier choice. Plus, Australian margarine spreads now have among the lowest levels of unhealthy trans fats in the world. In fact to earn the Heart Foundation Tick margarines must contain no more than 1% trans fats as part of their total fat content compared to butter’s 3-4%. Make sure you look out for Tick approved spreads at the supermarket!
A great benefit of canola-based margarines is that they contain good fats too - healthy essential fatty acids such as ‘ALA’ and omega 6. We need this to look after our hearts, blood, joints and immune systems. ALA is only found in food sources such as canola, linseed, walnut and soybean.
If your family loves the taste of butter, switch gradually. Start where you won’t notice the change so much by using margarine in baking and cooking. Most margarine spreads (except the ultra light varieties) replace butter very well in many recipes with minimum difference in taste or texture. Once you’re used margarine in your baking, gradually swop to spreading marg on your toast and sandwiches.
* According to the Australian National Children's Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey 2007.
These tips have been provided by ‘Mums United’ from the Heart Foundation.
For more easy, practical ways to raise a healthier family, as well as yummy free healthier recipes you can bake with margarine, check out
heartfoundation.org.au/mumsunited.
Together we can change the shape of Australia.
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