vegan butter/margarine
Posted by Bobbi luvs Broccoli on Apr 06, 2007 · Member since Feb 2007 · 88 posts
i always wince a little when i see a recipe that calls for these. i probably just know too much about nutrition and fat and stuff, but isn't margarine really bad for you? it's hydrogenated vegetable oil! icky! bad! trans fat!
or is this just a reaction that has been programed into my Psyche by the paranoid, over reactive, health-obsessed media?
just wondering, please let me know if I'm wrong ;)
I also see a number of ingredients/recipes that make me cringe because while XYZ my be vegan... it's full of stuff that is even worse for you than the animal counterpart.
A few observations...
1. Not everyone is vegan for health reasons, so crap that is worse than its animal counterpart may not be a concern.
2. A diet doesn't need to be 100% perfect so long as it is overall pretty good - ie the occasional iota of crap won't kill you... ;-)
3. Margarine USED to be evil when mainly it was solidified, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, but nowadays there are actually healthy margarines being produced.
I, personally, am omni, and we use butter in our house, as I feel it is better than old school margarine, but I am on the look-out for a plant-based replacement. There are a few out there that are supposed to be good, taste good and even help with blood lipid/cholesterol levels.
So your reaction is far from groundless... but there are options now that are good for you. There are a lot of opinions on which option is best, though and I am sure some suggestions will be forthcoming. (I hope so at least...)
Earth Balance had brands of "butter" that are vegan and are non hydroganated! Their actually really good! I recommend you try that brand. I hope that helped! But otherwise, margarine isn't good for you with all those hydroganated oils. :o
I have Earth Balance on hand for company and often omnis will go buy their own after tasting it. They make a harder regular "butter" and an organic, whipped "butter". Also, they fill the tubs with two cups of butter, so if you're cooking with it, it's pretty easy to eyeball the correct amount.
I forgot to add that often when a recipe calls for butter or magarine, I will just use oil instead... the problem there being, what is considered a healthy fat is subject to change. Canola is good fat! Canola is poison! Olive oil is good fat! We are eating too much olive oil! Yet these are the two I stick with, for oil. Generally I use canola for baking as I have yet to see a source I consider reputable slam the canola oil.
You can also, of course, often sub with a fruit puree of some sort, and I sometimes cut down on fat this way, but I generally don't desire to cut out all fat, having seen where the low-fat and fat-free 90s have gotten us.
thank you for all of the info. i checked out the earth balance website - it looks great, and i am so happy that it is not hydrogenated! i have been trying to eliminate hydrogenated oils from my diet (i had an eyeopening Aha! moment when i read the ingredients on the back of a jar of peanut butter, and the second ingredient after peanuts was hydrogenated veg oil. i can't believe all the healthy-looking foods they sneak it into! it's almost as bad as high fructose corn syrup!)
i also wanted to mention that though i am not a vegan for only health reasons, health is really important to me. i may get a little overly worried about health because of the history of cancer, heart disease and alcoholism in my family. none of which afflict me, thank god and knock on wood! ;)
EB and other healthy margarines aren't an option where I live, and since I found out that regular marge is chemically about one step away from plastic, I stopped using it. You'd be surprised the huge number of delicate baked goods that are made here with olive or veg oil and it works fine. Even what in UK are known as "fairy cakes" (madeleines, sponge cakes) are made with olive oil here. I always look for the OO logo as our region is a producer, and the taste is wonderful.
I am NOT defending margarine here and don't think most people should be eating most types of margarine... not the old fashioned types, at least... but this margarine being one molecule away from plastic was part of some weird "facts about margarine" email that was going around a few years back. It was one of those emails where a lot of scarey "facts" are mentioned but no credible sources given.
I don't know that there is any proof to margerine and plastic being so similar number one, and number two, a lot of things are chemically similar and yet vastly different in their real life applications, so this argument really doesn't mean much.
Old fashioned, partially hydrogenated margarine is not good for you... but not because of any chemical similarities it bears (or doesn't bear) to plastic.
(I won't deny that it TASTES similar to plastic. I was raised on margarine... I was pretty well along in years before I figured out why bread and butter in a resturant tasted so much better than bread and "butter" at home. We always called it butter at home which explains my taking so long to figure it out... I just figured it was a variant of ketchup always tasting better when we went out to eat, too)
Yinzermama, I didn't get my info off the Net but from a chemical engineer. She is also a vegetarian and told me she makes the exception for butter, as vegan marge like EB isn't available here, and told me why. Since she has a doctorate, I took it on board. (I don't believe all the "nutrional wisdumb" you can find floating around on the Net, either! LOL)
I've never heard that margarine is one molecule away from plastic, but it seems pretty obvious to me. it's not just margarine, though. fat and plastic are just molecularly similar. that goes for pretty much all fats, though, not just partially hydrogenated veg oils.
that's why you should never try to whip egg whites in a plastic bowl. the molecules in the egg whites could react with the plastic in the same way that they would react with fat - which would keep them from forming peaks. of course, i don't eat eggs, but i cook a lot for people who do, so i thought i would mention it. ;D
I try to pass up the recipes that call for margarine - it is a processed food, and the non-hydrogenated stuff is expensive, so I try to consume it in very limited quantities. No matter how delicious it looks, if it has a cup of margarine, I try to avoid it.
We only buy margarine of any kind for special uses. I prefer a non-hydrogenated, vegan one when having my favorite baked potato and mushroom combo, and I use it very rarely to make cookies. Normally we just don't keep anything like that in the house.
For garlic bread, I dip the bread rounds in olive oil with crushed garlic and salt, then broil it. Even the omni teens in the house eat it in preference to the stuff with margarine (even when mine is a day old, and the other is fresh!). My husband likes olive oil and lemon juice on toast with salt.
For most baked goods, I substitute oil. Since you only need 3/4 cups of oil to substitute for one cup of margarine or shortening, it saves fat, too!
For peanut butter, I buy Krema - it is all natural, only has peanuts - nothing else, and it is not at all gritty like some natural brands. And the price is good, too!
actually, you don't save fat by replacing margarine with oil. margarine is about 70-80% fat (the rest being water/air) while oil (because it is a liquid at room temp) is 100% fat all the time. so you use a smaller volume of oil but the amout of fat is the same
also, prettyn_punk, why can't you cook in the blue bonnet light stuff?
Yup, My answer to this is Earth Balance, Earth Balance, Earth Balance. We don't use margarine very often (1 tub usually lasts our household ~6 weeks), but when baking something that calls for marg, if I don't want to substitute oil, EB is a great-tasting, non-hydrogenated solution. Trader Joe's sells it pretty cheaply, too, which takes care of the "expensive" part.
that's why you should never try to whip egg whites in a plastic bowl. the molecules in the egg whites could react with the plastic in the same way that they would react with fat - which would keep them from forming peaks. of course, i don't eat eggs, but i cook a lot for people who do, so i thought i would mention it. ;D
Ohhh! Is THAT why! I never thought of it though now you say it, it seems obvious enough, since plastic is made from petroleum which is an oil--duh me. I'd always heard you should only do the eggwhite thing in a perfectly clean, dry Glass bowl--now I know why. Learn something new every day. Thanks, BLB!
actually, you don't save fat by replacing margarine with oil. margarine is about 70-80% fat (the rest being water/air) while oil (because it is a liquid at room temp) is 100% fat all the time. so you use a smaller volume of oil but the amout of fat is the same
Yup, My answer to this is Earth Balance, Earth Balance, Earth Balance. We don't use maragarine very often (1 tub usually lasts our household ~6 weeks), but when baking something that calls for marg, if I don't want to substitute oil, EB is a great-tasting, non-hydrogenated solution. Trader Joe's sells it pretty cheaply, too, which takes care of the "expensive" part.
Altho I love Earth Balance or other non-hydrogenated margarines for the times when I really want a margarine, expecially for some cookies, I still prefer to use oil when I can.
I try to use whole foods as much as possible, and oil is a millenia-old food and as close to whole as you can get (if made properly).
Earth Balance doesn't have any trans-fats, but I just double-checked their website to be sure, and it does have saturated fats (these are the types of fats which are solid at room temperature). Saturated fats have a higher correlation with heart disease - altho animal fats are by far the largest provider of saturated fats. Sitting in the hospital with my Mom when she had her emergency bypass made me pretty wary of that stuff.
I agree that we probably need some saturated fats in our diets, and most vegans don't over-consume them, but I still like to be cautious, and only use margarine when nothing else will perform the same function. And, I'm always looking for ways to sub oil or other ingredients for margarine in favorite recipes.
Altho some margarines are whipped, some are pure fat, so oil may save fat sometimes, and not others, but oils don't have saturated fat. And, the margarines that are not pure fat/oil sometimes turn out baked goods that aren't what we're used to - especially "light" or "spread" type margarines.
I agree that a tub every 6 weeks probably wouldn't hurt anything - but some of the recipes I've seen call for a half-tub for one recipe!
Unfortunately, I've only seen a Trader Joe's once in my life, so I'm stuck with market prices on this stuff :-\
I used Smart Balance light before I could get a hold of Earth Balance. It has preservatives and doesn't work particularly well for baking. It's extremely spreadable, which is nice. I switched to Earth Balance Soy Garden when Meijer started carrying it.
My only reservations about Earth Balance Soy Garden is that it contains palm fruit oil, the cause of the saturated fat. I don't consume very many things with saturated fat in them, so I'm not terribly concerned about the 1/2 tsp or so I probably use a day to saute some vegetables. I'm more concerned about the environmental impact on palm fruit and oil production, as well human rights abuses that sometimes occur in agricultural industries.
Has anyone tried the organic Earth Balance? Does it work well for baking? I don't think I've seen it around here but I think my HFS would order it if I asked nicely.