Has anyone tried the Land O Lakes Butter with Canola Oil? I picked some up at the grocery store today, and had some with my broccoli. It makes it very spreadable and melted quite easily. The label says no trans fats, so that sounds good. Any thoughts from the forum experts? I hope it's alright, cause I'll be disappointed otherwise.

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Dragonmom
155/123/130 (highest 175)

Well, just don't cook with it. I can't even remember why (I'm sure someone will "remind" me, LOL!) but I decided years ago that I would use canola oil, but not cook with it.

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Thanks Maggie. I think I do remember reading something on that now that you mention it(can't recall the details though). So, no cooking with it...I almost always us Olive Oil to cook with anyway.

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Dragonmom
155/123/130 (highest 175)

Could it be that Canola has a low smoke temp? I can't remember, either! I also remember reading a recipe in one of Dana Carpender's cookbooks that combines butter with a particular oil that makes the butter a healthy "spreadable" butter. Much easier to buy it, though!

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Alida
5'1" ~ 59 years old
Highest weight: 165
Atkins 7/10/2004
160/126/125
RE-DO, January 2008:
167/162/135

Actually I think Canola oil is pretty good, it has one of the highest smoking temps of any oil, and has the lowest numbers for saturated fat. I often add a bit of canola oil when cooking with butter to raise the smoking temp.

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DO NOT COOK WITH CANOLA!

Canola oil is 30% POLY-unsaturated fats. This means that these fatty acids in canola oil are damaged very quickly when heating. Smoke point has nothing to do with it. If you eat up canola oil, even BELOW the smoke point, you are leading yourself down the path to free radical damage.

BritneyFan -

For cooking, the hands-down BEST oil/fats are virgin coconut oil or lard. If you'd like to use a butter combo, use butter and olive oil, not canola. Olive oil is mostly MONO-unsatured fatty acids and much healthier than canola oil.

And remember, BUTTER IS GOOD FOR YOU. Real butter contains lauric acid, a fatty acid also found in mothers' breast milk and known for it's antimicrobial properties. It's very good for you.

Don't belive the BS in the media. Canola is NOT healthy for you I don't care WHAT they say.

OK, I'll step off the soapbox now

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It is always necessary to leave some part
of cooking to improvisation. - Paul Bocuse
Member since 2001

P.S.

Here's a link with some good info on fats...

One of the contributors is Mary Enig, she has a PhD in fats and oils.

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html

I know alot of the info on this link will seem "wrong" and it contradicts what so much of "society" and the "media" says but if you think of all the problems that have grown over the last 50 years in the nations health, and read about some of the "advancements" in food science during the same time, it starts becoming very clear exactly what happened.

At least to me!

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It is always necessary to leave some part
of cooking to improvisation. - Paul Bocuse
Member since 2001

What Marcy says!!

And remember there are basically 3 types of olive oil - extra light, which is nearly tasteless and is very good for cooking where you don't want the oil flavor, like in muffins and such; regular, which is good for flavoring where you want a little of that good olive oil taste; and extra-virgin, which I use pretty much just for salad dressings and anywhere I want a drizzle of really good grassy olive oil flavor.

For high heat cooking though, coconut oil and lard are all I use these days.

Char

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Veni, vidi, velcro. I came, I saw, I stuck around.

Save the Earth - it's the only planet with CHOCOLATE!

Wow Marcie, thanks for the information and digging up that artical! I often use Olive oil/butter combo as well. I thought Canola was so good for me!

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I buy it, use it, and like it.....in small amounts. I use real butter for baking and cooking. I use this stuff for a dab on green beans or asparagus or the once-in-a-blue-moon l/c muffin, since it is a soft spread. I've read alot of bad press about canola too. I switched to veggie and olive oils for the occasional deep frying. I do love soy products, but hear alot of bad stuff about them, too.....so with these things, I still buy them, but limit my usage quite a bit.

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SIGH. I just bought a tub of the butter/canola oil combo. I was not going to cook with it though. Thanks, Marci. I should have waited until the jury was in on this one.

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Alida
5'1" ~ 59 years old
Highest weight: 165
Atkins 7/10/2004
160/126/125
RE-DO, January 2008:
167/162/135

If you can stand one more article, this one is from Weston Price regarding canola oil:

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/conola.html

Aside from olive oil (which is really a fruit oil), I rid my kitchen of all vegetable oils a year or so ago after doing a lot of reading on the subject. Also, I wanted to rid my diet of processed foods as much as I could and among other things, vegetable oils go through a lot of processing. I dropped soy for the same reason as it's highly processed. Funny thing, this past Christmas I baked miniature quick bread loaves to give out as gifts to my non-LCing friends and relatives in lieu of all the cookies, etc. that I used to bake in the past. Not having any veg oil that the recipes called for, I used melted butter instead. Mind you, these are breads that I've made for years and they always gotten compliments, but people were just raving over them this year. What a difference using real food like butter can make!

BTW, I remember a friend telling me a long time ago that she softened butter and then mixed in olive oil to make it spreadable.

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>^..^<
Esther

LOL! I did the same thing a few years ago! I was on jury duty. The delierations took so long, we all started bringing in goodies. Being out of vegatable oil, and not having much time; I baked some zucchini bread with butter. It was voted it as the best zuchinni bread ever made, LOL! We were so relieved to reach a verdict on ~something~ that day. :eyes:

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~~~Teelbee
Back to GOAL!!!
start weight: 176/goal range: 137-134/now: 138
Reached goal in Aug. 2003 - 4rd year of maintenance.

I don't care for much in the way of soy unless it's soy sauce or miso. The trick with soy is to use the FERMENTED products. The way I understand it is that these don't have the high levels of isoflavones as the other products do.

Personally, I can't stand the taste of soy flour or soy oil. Canola either for that matter.

You want to do a "taste test" for oil? The best way is to make some popcorn. That'll tell you REAL QUICK how "pure" and good a fat/oil is.

Try popping a little with canola, soy, and with virgin coconut oil. Three separate batches.

You will be AMAZED at how wonderful the one popped in coconut oil is. This is what we did about a year ago and after that, I tossed all oils that weren't butter, lard, coconut, nut oils, or olive.

Catlady -

That's the same place where my link is going The Price Foundation is a wealth of knowledge.

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It is always necessary to leave some part
of cooking to improvisation. - Paul Bocuse
Member since 2001

My concern is not just for carbs. I have a heart problem and must cut back on fats. Do you know which I can have?? My Cholestral runs high no matter what. (Family Tradition)..