Most things in life taste better with butter. You won’t find much argument there, but when you spread that creamy goodness on your toast, you’re basically plastering the bread with pure fat. Just one tablespoon of pure butter contains 11 grams of fat and a whopping 7 grams of saturated fat along with 30 mg of cholesterol and 95 mg of sodium.
Fortunately, there are alternatives that add a lot of flavor with less fat. While not much lower in overall fat, most vegetable-based spreads have far less saturated fat and no cholesterol compared to butter. As an added bonus, they are easier to spread right out of the fridge.
It should be obvious by now, but if you're at all health-conscious, you should skip the margarine all together. Even though margarine has significantly less saturated fat than butter and spreads easier, it is loaded with trans fats. Your best option is to look for substitutes based on vegetable oils, but even then you need to read the nutrition facts carefully.
Any product that contains hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils means has at least some heart-killing trans fat. But, how, you ask, can the label claim 0g trans fat when such trans fats are used in making the spread? Well, the Feds have declared that anything less than 0.5g (< 500mg) can be labeled as 0g. For example, Land O’ Lakes Fresh Buttery Taste Spread has 0.47g of trans fat per serving, meaning that two servings gives you almost 1g of bad cholesterol-spreading trans fat, even though the saturated fat content is just 30 percent of that found in butter.
So, what are your options? Many spreads will have a similar fat and calorie content to butter, but with lower saturated fat. There are also some “light” spreads that have about half the calories and fat, but the flavor may leave something to be desired.
The cause of that less than savory flavor may be sodium, which is added to many substitutes. Shedd’s Spread Country Crock serves up 110mg of sodium per serving. Even plenty of “light” spreads have nearly the same sodium as butter, but there are some low-sodium products out there. One of the few is Smart Balance Whipped Low Sodium, which has just 30mg of sodium per serving.
Beyond carefully reading the label and finding the right product for your life, you may need to experiment to find the one that tastes best for you. And if you do find you can’t go without the butter, there’s always the simple plan of portion control and taking a smaller dab off the stick when you butter your toast.
