A health trend which has seen shoppers reject low-fat margarine for traditional butter could be putting lives at risk, says a top food researcher.
Last week Waitrose revealed that sales of block butter had risen in the past year, with it now outselling alternative spreads by more than 20 per cent.
It said this was largely due to growing awareness of ultra-processed foods which contain artificial additives such as emulsifiers and preservatives.
There are also concerns over seed oils, such as rapeseed and sunflower, used in many spreads.
This month Robert F Kennedy Jr, the incoming US health secretary, claimed that seed oils are ‘poisoning’ people.
But King’s College London researcher Professor Sarah Berry, who is chief scientist at popular dieting app Zoe, says studies show spreads are far healthier than traditional butter.
Last week Waitrose revealed that sales of block butter had risen in the past year, with it now outselling alternative spreads by more than 20 per cent. Picture: stock image of butter
King’s College London researcher Professor Sarah Berry, who is chief scientist at popular dieting app Zoe, said: ‘There’s been a huge increase in eating butter because of a belief that it is more natural than spread, so it’s better for us.’ Picture: Stock image
‘There’s been a huge increase in eating butter because of a belief that it is more natural than spread, so it’s better for us,’ she says.
‘But this argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. We know that lard is natural – but no one’s suggesting that we consume lard multiple times a day.’
Each year some 175,000 people in the UK die from cardiovascular disease, one of whose causes is a high level of cholesterol – a fatty plaque which blocks blood vessels.
Research shows swapping butter for spreads, which mix butter with vegetable or seed oil, leads to lower cholesterol levels, which means fewer heart attacks.
But social media influencers like US podcast host Joe Rogan have claimed seed and vegetable oils in spreads are harmful.
‘Not only is it [vegetable oil] terrible for you, there are no nutrients in it, so your body gets hungrier,’ he said in his podcast with nearly 15 million listeners.
But Prof Berry says: ‘The scare stories about spreads are based on a belief that anything that is processed is bad, yet we know that’s not true.
‘All the evidence shows that swapping butter for a typical spread which contains vegetable or seed oil lowers your risk of cardiovascular disease.’
