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Australian not healthy star ratings system paleo network-min

Have you seen who’s behind the (not so) Healthy Star Ratings system?

I saw a TV commercial recently for Uncle Toby’s Oat sachets and the main focus of the advert was how amazingly healthy they are. Apparently these Oats achieve a “4 healthy star rating” – and the higher the star rating, the healthier the product. So they say. Whilst I don’t want to pick on oats specifically, as I think they’re probably one of the not-as-bad-as-the-other-cereals out there, it really highlights how dangerously misleading these Healthy Star Ratings are. Initially I thought the Healthy Rating System was just based on old, outdated (incorrect) advice, but when I saw who was involved in its creation, it took a far more sinister turn.

What are Healthy Star Ratings?

This is an Australian initiative, and it’s jointly funded by the Australian, state and territory governments, and developed in partnership with industry and public health and consumer groups.

I took a further look into these groups, who have jointly developed these ratings, and they include the Australian Beverages Council, and the Australian Food and Grocery Council.

And just who makes up these bodies?

Members of the Australian Beverages Council include:

Coca-Cola Amatil Pty Ltd
Coca-Cola South Pacific
Heinz Australia P/L
PepsiCo Australia Holdings Pty Ltd
Red Bull Australia Pty Ltd
Tropico Fruits Pty Ltd

Among many others… (Surely we're not going to ever see health ratings on Red Bull?)

The Australian Food and Grocery Council has on its board:

Clive Stiff who is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Unilever Australia & NZ – their brands include Bertolli, Streets Ice Cream and my favourite Flora pro-activ
Trevor Clayton who is Chief Executive Officer for Nestle Australia Ltd
Andrew Towle who is Managing Director for Kellogg (Australia) Pty Ltd
Darren O’Brien who is Managing Director for Mondelez Foods Australia (better known as Kraft Foods and Cadbury)
Michael Ryan who is General Manager of Mars Chocolate, and
Peter West, Managing Director of Lion Dairy & Drinks

So the very companies who produce packaged, processed convenience food have very helpfully come up with a healthy star rating system? And we’re supposed to use this to tell us what is healthy food we should be eating lots of?

How to get a high star rating?

No surprisingly the star system is based on the old beliefs that whole grains are good for us, and fat to be avoided. Products receiving above 4 stars will include whole-grain foods, low-fat milk and reduced fat cheese, and extra lite (urgh I hate that word, theirs, not mine) spreads.

And how to get a low rating?

Products getting below 1 star include those that are full fat, regular fat yoghurt, high saturated fat cheese, salted butter, coconut oil (yes, they expressly list coconut oil on the less healthy foods list) and of course, untrimmed meats. So we can pretty much assume if it’s a natural, unprocessed, paleo food, it won’t get a high healthy star rating.

So I’ve come up with a new system to help you use the star rating system to identify healthy foods:

If it has a healthy star rating, avoid it tweet this quote

What’s your opinion on the Healthy Star Rating system?

Why Whole Foods Are Overlooked by the Star Rating System

One of the biggest flaws in the Healthy Star Rating system is that it almost completely overlooks unprocessed, single-ingredient foods. Whole foods like grass-fed beef, wild-caught salmon, free-range eggs, and fresh avocados do not have labels. Therefore, they are not eligible for a rating. Meanwhile, boxed cereals, artificially sweetened yoghurts, and margarine spreads can receive four or even five stars.

This reinforces the dangerous idea that health can be assessed by marketing claims on a label, instead of the nutritional integrity of the food itself. Real food doesn’t need a label or a tick of approval from a marketing committee. It speaks for itself.

Why “Low Fat” Isn’t Always Better

The obsession with low-fat products continues to dominate the criteria behind the star system. This outdated mindset fails to consider the importance of dietary fats for hormone regulation, brain health, and nutrient absorption. Natural fats found in foods like coconut oil, full-fat yoghurt, pasture-raised meat, and nuts are often labelled as unhealthy, purely based on saturated fat content.

On the other hand, ultra-processed low-fat alternatives with added thickeners, emulsifiers, and sugar replacements score higher, simply because they meet arbitrary macronutrient thresholds. This does not reflect current nutritional science and continues to mislead well-meaning consumers.

Where Sugar Hides in “Healthy” Foods

Products that are high in sugar can still achieve a favourable star rating if they contain added fibre or whole grains. Breakfast cereals, flavoured oat sachets, and even some children’s snacks are prime examples. Despite being loaded with sugar, these products manage to receive ratings of four stars or more because of their fibre content and reduced fat formulation.

This creates a false sense of health, especially for parents shopping for their children. They see a star rating, assume it has been vetted by experts, and make a purchase based on faulty assumptions. A bowl of sugary cereal does not become a health food just because it contains oats and is fortified with synthetic vitamins.

The Marketing Power Behind the Stars

Major food manufacturers are not simply following the guidelines, they are actively involved in shaping them. With their seats on boards and advisory councils, these companies have every incentive to design a system that works in their favour. The Healthy Star Rating becomes a marketing tool, not a scientific assessment of nutritional value.

It’s no coincidence that many of the products awarded high ratings are made by the very companies that helped draft the criteria. The system rewards processed food innovation over genuine nutrition.

What Shoppers Can Do Instead

Rather than relying on front-of-pack labels or star systems, it is more effective to build your shopping strategy around real food principles. Here are a few ways to make better choices without falling for industry-led health claims:

Shop the perimeter of the store where the fresh produce, meat, eggs, and fish are located
Read the ingredients list instead of the front of the packet
Focus on whole, unpackaged foods that are naturally rich in nutrients
Question health claims like “lite”, “low fat”, and “fortified”, which often signal a heavily processed product

Star Ratings and the Influence on Children’s Food Choices

Another major concern is how the star system influences food marketed to children. Brightly coloured boxes with cartoon characters and stars on the front create the impression that these are good daily choices. A muesli bar with sugar, seed oils, and flavour enhancers might still receive a four-star rating due to added fibre or oats.

Children should be learning about the benefits of real food, not trained to trust front-of-pack labels. A sliced apple with almond butter or a boiled egg with veggie sticks doesn’t come with a rating, but offers far more nutrition than a “healthy” snack bar from the packaged goods aisle.

Can We Really Trust Government-Endorsed Labels?

With industry lobbyists heavily involved in the creation and promotion of the star system, it's difficult to view it as an impartial guide. While the original intention may have been to improve public health, the result is a watered-down, easily manipulated system that benefits large food manufacturers more than the consumer.

True health comes from education, not marketing. The more informed consumers become about the sources and quality of their food, the less power these labelling schemes will hold.

How to Educate Friends and Family

It can be challenging to explain to friends or family members why something with a high star rating is not necessarily healthy. One strategy is to help them flip the box over and look at what’s actually inside. Highlight the presence of seed oils, preservatives, artificial flavours, and sugar. Compare that to a simple, real food alternative like roasted chicken, steamed vegetables, or homemade snacks using nuts and dried fruit.

Once people learn how to identify food quality themselves, they begin to trust marketing labels less and their instincts more.

Real Food Doesn’t Need a Star

Ultimately, if a food product is being promoted with stars, ticks, or heart symbols, it is most likely not a food that supports true health. Real food is found in nature, not in a factory. It is nutrient-dense, satisfying, and does not require fortification or marketing gimmicks to justify its existence.

If you want to eat better, ignore the stars and follow the ingredients. Your body knows the difference.

“Eat Margarine or Your Family Will Die” – Really?

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“Health food” commercials are getting worse and worse – and of course I'm not referring to adverts for kale or grass-fed beef. I'm talking about products with a list of unpronounceable ingredients – products I go out of my way to avoid. And given that you're reading my blog, I suspect you do too.

There seems to have been a huge turn here. It seems to slow be becoming the norm to eat an unprocessed diet of real, whole foods. Avoiding processed carbs like bread and pasta seems to be slowly becoming mainstream, and a feat of fat is definitely starting to disappear. I get the impression the manufacturers of all those other food-like-products are getting worried…

So which advert has been annoying me most this week?

Flora Pro-Activ

Cue upset wife that her husband has high cholesterol. He undertakes the Flora Pro-Activ challenge for three weeks, has his cholesterol re-checked. Ends with happy wife, now her husband isn't about to drop dead due to a high cholesterol invoked heart attack.

So what is the Flora challenge? For three weeks you eat 25 g of Flora every day, make sure you eat your wholegrains, replace BAD saturated fat with healthy saturated fat and generally keep your fat as low as possible. Nooo!

And what does Flora Pro-Activ actually contain?

Ingredients: Water, Vegetable Oils (30%), Plant Sterol Esters (12.5%), Buttermilk, Modified Waxy Corn Starch, Salt (1%), Emulsifiers (Mono-and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Sunflower Lecithin), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Citric Acid, Flavourings, Colour (Beta Carotene), Vitamin A and D

And evil butter? Let’s remind ourselves of the dangerous ingredients that contains: Pasteurised Cream (from Milk), Water, Salt. Three ingredients that I have in my kitchen; compared to unidentified “vegetable” oils and a host of ingredients not available at the local farmers market.

Despite a lot of research showing a higher cholesterol actually lowers the risk of heart attack, of course, these companies still like to keep us fearing cholesterol. More worrying is the margarine they want us to eat to benefit our health – so chemically processed, they are a fat that our bodies don’t recognise at all.

The other issue, is the claim that the plant sterol esters in this product actually lower your cholesterol. The adverts make it sound like a magic potion, with the ability to dramatically cut your cholesterol in a matter of days. The reality is that alone, these chemicals can supposedly only reduce cholesterol by a maximum of 10% (average results presumably a lot lower) – and of course that’s assuming reducing cholesterol is a good thing.

All in all I find the advert extremely misleading and think it’s outrageous that they come into our homes every day, suggesting that if you love your family, you need to make sure they eat 25 g of margarine a day – or risk losing them to heart disease.

The Myth of Margarine: What’s the Real Health Risk?

For years, margarine was touted as the heart-healthy alternative to butter — a spread allegedly designed with your arteries in mind. But now that we’ve pulled back the curtain on what margarine actually contains, many of us are asking a far more sensible question: why were we ever told to eat this in the first place?

The truth is, margarine is an ultra-processed product engineered in labs and pumped full of chemically altered fats. These fats, including trans fats and processed polyunsaturated oils, are nothing like the natural fats our bodies evolved to metabolise. And no amount of rebranding or health halo marketing can change that.

What Happened to “Natural”?

It’s amazing to witness the food industry’s efforts to redefine what’s “healthy.” Butter, cream, eggs — once demonised — are now slowly regaining their rightful place in real-food circles. And while health-conscious communities have been embracing whole foods and ancestral eating patterns for over a decade, mainstream advertising is only just starting to notice. But instead of embracing these shifts, many brands are scrambling to cling to their outdated models, doubling down on their margarine and cholesterol-fear campaigns.

“Cholesterol Lowering” – But At What Cost?

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: cholesterol. The suggestion that lowering cholesterol is always a positive outcome is deeply flawed. Numerous studies have shown that cholesterol is essential for hormone production, brain function, and cellular repair. Lowering it artificially through chemical means, without addressing the underlying cause of poor health, could actually be harmful.

Not to mention, many of these cholesterol-lowering spreads (like Flora Pro-Activ) aren’t doing anything particularly miraculous. As mentioned, their key active ingredient — plant sterol esters — might reduce LDL cholesterol levels by around 10% at best. And that’s in ideal conditions, alongside a textbook-perfect low-fat, grain-heavy diet. But does this reduction equate to reduced risk of heart attack or stroke? The evidence simply isn’t conclusive.

Marketing vs Science: Who Do You Trust?

When you see a glossy commercial that plays on fear and emotion — a worried wife, a serious voiceover, a heartfelt pledge to “take control” — you’re not watching science. You’re watching marketing. These ads aren’t concerned with long-term health outcomes; they’re focused on brand loyalty, product sales, and cleverly timed emotional triggers.

Compare that to the growing body of independent research that’s highlighting the role of nutrient-dense, unprocessed foods in long-term wellbeing. More and more nutritionists, doctors and ancestral health advocates are saying the same thing: eat real food, minimise inflammatory ingredients, and don’t fear healthy fats.

The Paleo Perspective on Spreads and Fats

If you’re following a Paleo lifestyle, the idea of margarine probably seems laughable. Why would you swap something like grass-fed butter or ghee — both rich in vitamins A, D, E and K2 — for a synthetic product with preservatives, chemical stabilisers, and ambiguous “vegetable oils”?

Butter, coconut oil, animal fats and olive oil have stood the test of time. These are fats our ancestors consumed, often in abundance, without the chronic health epidemics we face today. Margarine, by contrast, is a modern invention born out of post-war industrialisation and misguided dietary guidelines — guidelines that are only now being dismantled as the science catches up.

The Bigger Problem with “Health” Products

Flora Pro-Activ isn’t the only product blurring the line between food and pharmaceutical. Every aisle in the supermarket is filled with processed products dressed up with buzzwords: “cholesterol friendly,” “heart smart,” “low GI,” and “plant-based.” But if you flip the packet and read the ingredients, it’s a different story entirely.

These labels exist to distract you from what’s really going on: ultra-processed food manufacturers are cashing in on health trends without genuinely supporting better health outcomes. They’re relying on outdated nutritional myths and fear tactics to keep consumers locked into a cycle of dependency on fake food — while real food sits quietly on the perimeter of the store.

What Can You Do Instead?

So, what’s the alternative to taking a “cholesterol challenge”? It’s simpler than you might think. Here are some truly health-supportive swaps:

Use butter or ghee from grass-fed sources — it’s natural, nourishing, and doesn’t require a marketing campaign to prove it.
Choose olive oil or avocado oil for cold applications, and coconut oil or animal fats for high heat cooking.
Eat a nutrient-dense diet full of vegetables, pastured meats, nuts, seeds and wild seafood — real foods your body recognises.
Get your fats from whole sources like eggs, oily fish, olives and coconuts.

You don’t need a challenge. You need information — and real, nourishing food that doesn’t come with a side of marketing spin.

Conclusion: Trust Your Instincts, Not the Ad Break

The next time an ad tries to scare you into believing your breakfast spread will determine whether you live to see your grandchildren, pause. Think critically. Ask yourself: does this message align with what I know about real health and real food?

If something feels off, it probably is. If a product needs a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to convince you it’s good for your heart, maybe it isn’t. Trust your instincts. Trust your body. And above all, trust the food that humans have eaten for generations — not the version that was created in a lab to mimic it.

What do you think about the Flora Pro-Activ challenge and the health commercials that come into your home each day?

Why I’m eating margarine & 6 other non Paleo foods again

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I've been thinking a lot about my diet recently, and I'm getting a little worried that being fully Paleo maybe isn't the healthiest choice I can make. After speaking to several health experts recently, and reading up on the latest government recommendations, I've started to get really worried about how healthy my Paleo diet really is. Despite my blog being all about the Paleo diet, it's only fair that I'm honest with you and share my concerns and fears.

I'm concerned that I'm not getting enough calcium, fibre or carbohydrates. I've also started to get really worried about how much more fat I've been consuming, especially when compared to what the government recommend. I'm suspecting I'm eating way too much fat, and probably more meat and eggs than I should as well. I've read several times this week that it's dangerous to eat more than one egg a day, especially if you eat the yolk. Something has got to change…

In fact, I'm considering if Paleo is a healthy choice altogether. I've been pondering whether there are a lot of very healthy, nutritious foods that I'm excluding from my diet by continuing to be Paleo. I'm going to initially work on reintroducing the following foods, in the hope I start to feel even more healthy, before committing to a really healthy low fat diet for a month. Here are the seven foods I'm going to start eating again, starting today. I'll be reporting back on my progress and would love to hear your thoughts on the new additions to my modified paleo diet.

Margarine

With my new found concerns about cholesterol and eating high fat, the first, and most obvious decision for me to make was to swap coconut nut oil and grass fed ghee for heart healthy margarine. I'm going to try to find an organic margarine, and make sure I choose a brand that is heart healthy. This was a hard decision to make, but I'm becoming convinced a very healthy one – as margarine is much lower in saturated fat and cholesterol, which means I’m much less likely to get heart disease. Carrots drenched in margarine doesn't sound as appealing as butter, but I'll just have to get used to it for the good of my health.

Vegetable Oil

Have you seen the saturated fat content of butter, lard, ghee and coconut oil? I’m going to throw away my olive oil and swap it with healthy vegetable oil. This should also help keep my cholesterol levels low as it's low in saturated fat. Also it's vegetable oil, so will help me get towards my five a day.

Quorn Mince

I've also been reading a lot about how badly meat clogs up your arteries and is really hard to digest, so I'm planning to start with meatless Monday's and reduce my meat consumption dramatically. I’ve decided to replace my organic, grass fed ground beef with healthy vegan Quorn mince. It’s made from rehydrated mycoprotein extracted from the fungus ‘Fusarium Venenatum.’ I'm not really sure what that is, but Quorn is really low in fat and has no unhealthy animal fats, so it is obviously very healthy. I've also discovered that Quorn make healthy, meat free bacon slices and chicken fillets too. So really, I'm not even going to notice I've gone meat free.

Soy Milk

I've been having very little dairy in my paleo diet – and despite my recent body scan showing I have an excellent bone density, I clearly must be highly deficient in calcium. I've just bought my first bottle of soy milk, so I'll be making sure I drink a lot of this each day, as well as skim milk to give my calcium levels a big boost. I must be honest, I opened the bottle and it did not smell good, but if I add some hot chocolate to it, it should hopefully take away the taste.

Whole grain cereal

There are so many revolutionary new whole grain cereals out there now, compared to when I started eating Paleo. I've even found a special range specifically designed to promote heart health, which makes me question if I'm right to continue to start the day with a high fat meal? These technologically advanced cereals do seem to be an easy way to start the day, providing lots of healthy carbohydrates for energy. The one I'm looking forward to trying the most is Kellogg’s Special K Multi Grain – it contains FOUR different types of healthy grains and is almost fat free. I’ll make sure I have it with soy or skim milk.

Coca Cola Zero

Pretty much all I've been drinking for the last few years has been water and tea. I've hear it's bad to omit variety which has been concerning me. I haven’t had a can of Coca Cola in so long because I'd convinced myself it was unhealthy, but they now make a version with no sugar at all. Who knows what it is sweetened with, but I can’t wait to try one again. The people in the TV adverts always look positively glowing with health and I'm quite keen to have some of what they're having. It’s got no sugar, so it must be healthy, as we all know how bad sugar is for us.

Low Fat Snack Bars

In case I do get hungry between meals (which I'm sure I won’t, as all of the carbohydrates I’ll be eating with provide me with lots of energy) I’ll make an effort to reach for a low fat snack bar rather than a cholesterol-loaded hard boiled egg, home made jerky, or a handful of nuts as I have been doing. There are so many different flavours these days, and a lot of them are healthy whole grain. Some even are fruit flavoured, which will help me get to my five a day.

Since I've made this decision I've realised a lot of these foods don't need to be kept in the fridge and don't seem to go off – so this is going to make life so much easier for me – another benefit to adapting my diet.

Are there any healthy non Paleo foods that you are going to add back to your diet? Let me know what you've added back and why in the comments below.

Where Canola's Grow Rapeseed oil vegetable oil healthy paleo diet-min

Ever Wondered Where Canola’s Grow?

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Canola oil, otherwise known as rapeseed oil, is an oil growing in popularity in the Western world due to its supposed ‘healthiness’ as well as the fact that it is cheap to produce, and therefore, consume. Many people who follow conventional wisdom are switching to canola oil as their oil of choice for frying, roasting and baking – but the more you learn about it, the more you realise it really isn't a good choice…

It may seem strange, but the name ‘canola’ actually has no relevance to the plant it is made from whatsoever. In fact, ‘canola’ was a name chosen by the board of the Rapeseed Association of Canada – the ‘Can’ part standing for Canada, and the ‘Ola’ referring to oil. These marketing companies really aren’t geniuses, are they!?

Like any seed oil, rapeseed requires industrial scale processing to be turned into an oil. It is made my heating and then crushing the seed, before refining with hexane, bleaching with clay, and then deodorizing using steam distillation. You wouldn't eat an animal or vegetable that had been refined, bleached, and deodorized, so why should your oil be any different? We are all wise enough to know by now that ‘refined’ is a word that is most definitely doesn't fit the Paleo blueprint.

Canola oil is marketed as a ‘healthy’ product because it is low in saturated fat. We know by now that saturated fat isn't a bad thing – nope, quite the opposite. Saturated fat provides us with a pure, easy to metabolise form of energy – and that’s why I cook in coconut oil whenever I can. Canola oil also doesn't stand up well to heat, and goes rancid at fairly low temperatures – especially in comparison to stable fats like coconut oil, palm oil and ghee. Canola oil is high in erucic acid, a well known toxin that causes myocardial lipidosis (fatty degeneration of the heart). The majority of Canola oil is also genetically modified to be herbicide resistant.

Canola oil is also marketed as ‘healthy’ because it has a good Omega 3:6 ratio – approximately 2 parts omega 6 to 1 part omega 3. We know that the ideal ratio is 1:1; but, it’s worth holding our hands up and admitting that a 2:1 ratio is pretty good. However, we also know that omega 3s do not stand up well to heat. As Canola oil is processed using high temperatures, the omega 3 turns rancid quickly and is rendered useless – or even worse – toxic. What you are left with is a nasty, omega 6 rich liquid. Oh, and it doesn't even taste good!

The more you learn about Canola oil, the more you realise you are better off without it. It’s not a healthy choice at all, it’s just another product devised by intelligent marketing companies trying to sell a product at the expense of your health.

What are your opinions on Canola oil? Do you use it, or do you prefer olive oil, coconut oil, lard and ghee?

The Paleo Guide to Cooking Oils which coconut oil olive lard tallow vegetable sunflower canola healthy-min

The Ultimate Paleo Guide to Cooking Oils

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In the Paleo world, we’re not scared of fat. Quite the contrary – we embrace healthy fats and encourage liberal consumption. We worship the health giving properties of coconut oil, olive oil and grass fed ghee. At the same time, we understand the danger of rancid seed oils with a scarily high Omega 6 content. All the information about fats can be somewhat confusing – so do you know what oil to use, and when to use it?

Coconut Oil

My personal favourite – and perhaps the all-round king of cooking oils, coconut oil really is a product that no Paleo kitchen is complete without. It’s shelf stable, rich in healthy medium chain triglycerides and doesn’t oxidise easily. It’s perfect for using in baked goods, for frying, for roasting vegetables – or just eating by the spoonful. Many people also use it as a natural moisturiser, hair product or lip balm. It’s also been proven to have antibacterial effects and is excellent for improving your gut health, boosting your immunity and improving your metabolism. If you’d rather not stock up on lots of different oils, coconut oil has to be the first on your list.

Make sure you buy the unrefined ‘extra virgin’ kind – it’s solid at room temperature and liquid at around 24 degrees C (76F). It can be pretty expensive compared to things like olive oil, which is why I buy mine in bulk!

Ghee

Ghee always throws up a bit of confusion for us Paleo folk, not least because it’s a form of dairy and dairy isn’t part of the Paleo framework. Yes, Ghee is clarified butter – but the process that makes it removes the problematic casein and lactose content. If you don't tolerate other forms of dairy, you'll probably still be ok with ghee. I’ve recently started including it in my diet, with excellent results – and it tastes amazing too!

It has a great omega 3 : omega 6 ratio (roughly 1:1) and is rich in vitamins A, D, E and K2. It’s one of the most stable fats for cooking at high temperatures, so is great for frying and roasting. However, it is expensive, and if you can’t buy it grass fed, you’re probably better off without it altogether.

Palm Oil

Similar to coconut oil in that it is shelf stable and rich in healthy saturated fats, palm oil is generally more expensive and harder to find. It also draws about controversy because of its sustainability and the impact palm oil farming is having on Orang-utan populations. If you can find it from a verified, sustainable source, and you can afford it – then use it much as you would in coconut oil (except in baking). If you can’t, stick to the good stuff above.

Olive Oil

Probably the most popular and well known healthy oil – olive oil is one of those that you can enjoy with your conventional wisdom friends without getting into an argument about the health benefits of saturated fats. It stands up fairly well to heat, so makes a decent oil for light pan frying – but it’s much better as a dressing, drizzled liberally onto salads, meats, or used in pesto. You’ll find lots of different flavours and colours of olive oil on the shelves; just make sure you always buy ‘Extra Virgin’ and ideally organic. In my experience, the darker the colour, the tastier it will be.

Animal Fats

Animal fats are much maligned in conventional wisdom, but why so?

Avocado Oil, Walnut Oil and Macadamia Oil

Experiment with these as dressings and enjoy their unique flavours – but don’t attempt to cook with them. They’re not the most heat stable, and besides, they’re expensive so why would you want to? Buy them in dark bottles where possible to minimise oxidation.

Storage Matters: Keeping Your Oils Fresh

Even the healthiest Paleo cooking oils can become harmful if they’re stored incorrectly. Oxidation is a real issue — especially for oils that are sensitive to light, air, or heat. If your olive oil is sitting in a clear bottle by the stove, it’s probably well on its way to rancid. Make sure you always:

Store oils in dark glass bottles (or stainless steel) away from sunlight
Keep lids tightly sealed to reduce air exposure
Avoid storing oils near the oven or other heat sources
Buy smaller quantities if you don’t use oil quickly — freshness is key

As a general rule, saturated fats like coconut oil, ghee, and tallow are more stable and less prone to oxidation, whereas oils like walnut or macadamia are far more delicate.

What About Smoke Points?

If you’ve ever wondered why some oils are better for high-heat cooking while others are only suited for drizzling, it comes down to their smoke point — the temperature at which oil begins to break down and produce free radicals. Here’s a quick guide for common Paleo oils:

Oil/Fat	Approx. Smoke Point (°C)	Best Use
Coconut Oil	177–232°C	Frying, roasting, baking
Ghee	250°C	High-heat cooking, sautéing
Olive Oil (Extra Virgin)	160–190°C	Dressings, light pan-frying
Avocado Oil	270°C	Grilling, frying, searing
Tallow	200–250°C	Deep frying, roasting
Duck Fat	190°C	Roasting, shallow frying

Choosing the right oil for the right purpose isn’t just about taste — it’s also about health. When oils are overheated past their smoke point, they degrade, releasing harmful compounds and destroying beneficial nutrients.

Rendered Animal Fats: Rediscovering the Old Ways

While tallow, lard, and duck fat may have fallen out of favour during the low-fat craze of the 80s and 90s, they’re making a comeback in the Paleo community — and for good reason. These traditional fats are:

Stable at high temperatures
Rich in flavour
Loaded with fat-soluble vitamins (especially if grass-fed or pasture-raised)
Inexpensive to make at home from leftover cuts

If you roast meat regularly, don’t throw away the drippings. Strain and store them in a glass jar in the fridge — they make amazing roast potato fat or can be used in pan-frying savoury dishes. Homemade tallow (from beef) and lard (from pork) are especially good for stir-fries, frying eggs, or crisping up vegetables. Duck fat, in particular, is revered for its unmatched flavour when roasting root vegetables or making confit.

Sourcing Paleo-Friendly Oils

When buying fats and oils, the source is everything. Not all ghee is grass-fed. Not all coconut oil is cold-pressed. Not all olive oil is even real! Look for the following to get the best quality:

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Cold-pressed, dark bottle, ideally Australian, Spanish, or Italian with harvest date on label
Coconut Oil: Organic, cold-pressed, virgin (avoid refined unless deodorised for a specific purpose)
Ghee: Grass-fed, cultured if possible
Tallow & Lard: Grass-fed and pasture-raised, ideally homemade from clean animal fat
Avocado & Macadamia Oils: Cold-pressed, sold in dark glass bottles, no additives

With so many oils diluted or blended with cheaper alternatives, it pays to read labels carefully. If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Flavour First: Cooking Oils as Ingredients

In Paleo cooking, oils aren’t just functional — they’re part of the recipe. Each one brings its own distinct character to a dish. Use ghee to create nutty depth in your scrambled eggs. Roast pumpkin in duck fat for a rich, velvety texture. Drizzle macadamia oil over grilled zucchini for a slightly sweet, Australian bush-tucker edge.

The secret is to match the oil to the mood. Coconut oil adds a tropical twist to curries or baked sweet potatoes, while olive oil is perfect for Mediterranean-style dishes. And if you’re lucky enough to get your hands on homemade tallow? Roast up a big tray of carrots, parsnips, and beets and let the flavour do the talking.

Summary: Choose Wisely, Cook Boldly

Fats are foundational to the Paleo diet — not feared. They provide satiety, help absorb nutrients, and bring essential flavour to our meals. By choosing heat-stable, minimally processed, nutrient-dense oils, you’ll get all the benefits without any of the downsides of modern processed fats.

Still using vegetable oil “just to finish off the bottle”? Do yourself a favour and toss it. Stock your pantry with oils that your great-grandparents would recognise — and your body will thank you.

🥥 What’s your go-to Paleo cooking fat these days? Tried duck fat on roasted cauliflower yet? Let me know what you’re cooking with in the comments below!

The Butter Guilt Trip: Is It Justified?

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Here in Australia a commercial that I find particularly irritating, is for a brand of Margarine, MeadowLea. Their advert is centred on concerned mothers promising to switch from butter to margarine. If the product was pixelated out and the words replaced, you could easily think the mothers were pledging to give up hard drugs for the sake of their families – such is butter vilified in the advert.

The MeadowLea website explains how Saturated Fats are bad fats which increase cholesterol in the blood and should be limited. They list fatty meats, butter, chicken skin, cream, full cream milk, cheese, coconut oil and palm oil in the danger category. (I wonder how much longer until the lipid hypothesis is finally laid to rest?)

The monounsaturated and polyunsaturated categories – which they say can be included in “everyday healthy eating”, include margarine spreads, canola oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, soybean oil and cottonseed oil. So basically they pretty much recommend the complete reverse to Paleo, as you’d expect from a company making money from selling margarine.

Think of the Children!

Their new campaign is to encourage Australian families to improve their diet by swapping butter for (their brand of) margarine – and once enough people make the pledge* they will plant seed gardens in children’s hospitals in Australia.

From a corporate perspective, it’s actually a pretty smart campaign. They know mothers tend to procure the families groceries and therefore control the family diet. They also know mothers are concerned about their families’ health. Tying the campaign in with children’s hospital almost puts an extra pressure on mothers; it almost feels as though if families don’t stop eating butter, they won’t be helping out children’s hospitals – how selfish. I also think tying the campaign in with hospitals will make people subconsciously associate their choice of butter or margarine, with ill health – particularly the ill health of children. “Swap butter for margarine and we’ll build an animal rescue centre” just wouldn't have the same emotional pull, would it?

Imagine the outcry if a cigarette company promised to build hospital wards, if enough people converted their families from non-smokers to smokers? Surely there is enough information in the public domain now, for substantial objection to the health claims of a margarine manufacturer? Yet they are allowed to guilt-trip mothers into making ill-informed decisions into the nutrition of their families.

Mainly Natural Sources

In case you wondered, the ingredients for MeadlowLea are:

Vegetable Oils 65% (containing 52% Canola & Sunflower Oil), water, salt, <1% (emulsifiers (soy lecithin, 471), preservative (202), food acid (lactic)), milk solids, maltodextrin, natural colour (beta-carotene), vitamins A & D, flavour.

I'm very curious as to what the mysterious 13% of vegetable oils is, that isn't listed? Their site and labelling seem very coy on this. But hey, “99% of the ingredients in MeadowLea are from natural sources” – so it must be good! Using that logic, it must be positively healthy to add Petroleum to lunch, given that it’s a natural product from natural sources.

The typical ingredients in butter:

Cream, water.

People only seem to eat margarine because they buy into the health claims – I'm yet to hear of anyone who actually prefers the taste. Once the mainstream come to accept they've been mislead on fats, I can’t see how companies making products like margarine will be able to survive. Campaigns like this are perhaps an inevitable part of the companies’ frantic journey through the unwinding of the lipid hypothesis.

Have you seen the advert yet? Did you feel similarly irritated by it?

*If you happen to look at their website and see the number of people who have made the promise, reduce the number by one. I accidently clicked the promise button – and they don’t have a button for un-promise’s. As much as I don’t like breaking promises, this is one I will take pride in breaking – starting with lots of animal fat for dinner.

The Real History of Margarine

It’s worth taking a step back and looking at where margarine actually came from. Originally developed in the 19th century as a cheap butter alternative for the French military, margarine was never intended to be a premium or health-promoting food. Early versions were made from beef tallow and skim milk. Later, as vegetable oils became more accessible and industrial seed oil processing was developed, margarine evolved into the highly processed spread we know today.

During World War II, rationing pushed margarine into more homes, and over time, food manufacturers promoted it heavily as a modern, scientific upgrade from butter. This narrative aligned perfectly with the emerging lipid hypothesis of the mid-20th century, which incorrectly blamed saturated fat for heart disease — a claim that has since been widely challenged, if not debunked, by modern nutritional research.

So it’s rather ironic that something with such artificial roots is now sold to us as a health-conscious choice. The food industry didn’t start making margarine to improve health — they made it to maximise profits. That hasn't changed.

Understanding Industrial Seed Oils

Margarine’s primary ingredients — canola, sunflower, soybean, cottonseed, and corn oils — are all industrial seed oils. These oils are not cold-pressed or naturally extracted. Instead, they undergo intensive processing involving high heat, chemical solvents like hexane, deodorisation, and bleaching to make them palatable and shelf-stable.

This process strips the oils of any nutritional value and makes them prone to oxidation, which can cause inflammation and oxidative stress in the body. Some margarines are hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated, creating trans fats — now widely recognised as harmful and banned in many countries, though still present in trace amounts in ultra-processed foods.

Even the so-called “non-hydrogenated” versions are problematic due to their high omega-6 content. In excessive amounts, omega-6 fatty acids can promote inflammation when not balanced with omega-3s — something virtually impossible on a modern processed-food-heavy diet.

What About the Cholesterol Argument?

Many people still avoid butter due to its cholesterol and saturated fat content. However, new research has shown that dietary cholesterol has minimal impact on blood cholesterol levels for most people. In fact, the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans removed the long-standing recommendation to limit dietary cholesterol, stating it’s “not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.”

Moreover, saturated fat plays a vital role in hormone production, brain function, and the integrity of cell membranes. Demonising it based on outdated and flawed studies does a disservice to those trying to make informed decisions about their health. Naturally occurring fats from quality animal sources — including butter — provide fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K2, all essential for long-term health.

Why Butter is the Ancestral Fat

Butter has been a staple fat in traditional diets around the world for centuries. Whether it’s clarified into ghee in Indian cuisine or simply churned from raw cream in Europe, butter is as close to a whole food as you can get in the fat category. It’s naturally rich in nutrients, especially when sourced from grass-fed animals.

Grass-fed butter contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which has been linked to fat loss and improved metabolic health. It also boasts higher levels of vitamin K2, a nutrient critical for directing calcium to the bones and teeth, rather than soft tissues like arteries. None of these benefits exist in margarine — and they certainly weren’t added by MeadowLea.

Marketing Over Meaning

What’s perhaps most concerning is how much sway food marketing continues to have over public health narratives. Colourful labels, wellness buzzwords, and emotionally manipulative ad campaigns often distract consumers from the actual ingredient list. It becomes about what a product represents — not what it is.

The butter guilt trip plays into fears and outdated science, instead of empowering families to embrace real food. Encouraging parents to swap a traditional fat like butter for an industrial spread based on flawed cholesterol science isn’t just misleading — it’s irresponsible.

Choosing Health Over Hype

If you’re still unsure whether to choose butter or margarine, here’s a simple way to decide: look at what your great-grandparents would have eaten. Margarine didn’t exist in their kitchens — butter, tallow, lard and other traditional fats did. These fats have stood the test of time. They didn’t need health claims or hospital tie-ins to be considered food — they just were.

So rather than being guilted into giving up butter, perhaps we should be questioning how margarine ever gained such a health halo in the first place. Health is not found in chemically altered, plastic-like spreads — it’s found in nutrient-dense, minimally processed foods that our bodies recognise and thrive on.

🧈 Have you made the switch back to real fats like butter? Do you notice a difference in how you feel? I'd love to hear your story in the comments below!

Another Margarine or Butter “Health” Article

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I was reading the Summer 2012 edition of “Woman’s Weekly Health” earlier, when I came across this double page spread debating whether Margarine or Butter is better for your health. Fighting the corner for butter was a cook, Fran Abdallaoui. Arguing the case for margarine was Barbara Eden, Nutrition Manager at National Heart Foundation of Australia. I'm not sure how pitching a cook against a nutritionist (especially one representing the national heart foundation) is a balanced debate. I don’t think they want their readers to side with butter, do you?

Eden says “It comes down to your health and that’s the main factor your (SIC) considering when choosing between margarine and butter, there’s really no choice to make”. She also tells readers that “A regular butter is made up of… more than four per cent trans fat”, which I find frustratingly misleading, since natural, completely inert trans fats – as found in animal products – are completely different to the harmful trans fats found in many processed foods.

This is all because Eden believes “It’s the saturated fat and trans fat in our food supply that elevates your blood cholesterol levels which increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, and that’s one of the leading causes of death in Australia”

The article also adds “there is the convenience factor of the immediately spreadable product with a longer shelf life” as another reason we should go for margarine instead of butter. Well, using that argument, shouldn't we all have frozen pizza for dinner – it’s a lot more convenient and has a far longer shelf life than whole food…

In a “health” magazine, readers are going to place much more confidence in a nutritionist (especially one representing the national heart foundation) than they would a cook. If they really want to present a debate, surely they should present both sides, equally? Or better still, finally run an article about how wrong they've had it for the past few decades. I must stop reading “health” magazines – they raise my cortisol levels more than almost anything else and that’s definitely not good for my health!

Butter vs Margarine: Looking Beyond the Label

At face value, it seems like a simple choice — opt for the spread that has fewer saturated fats and a longer shelf life, right? But when you dig deeper into the origins, composition, and long-term health implications of both butter and margarine, it’s anything but simple. And yet, mainstream media continues to present the argument in binary terms, usually casting margarine as the sensible, science-backed choice and butter as an indulgent relic of a less informed era. Let’s dismantle that narrative.

The Origins of Margarine: A Processed Solution

Margarine was invented in the 1800s as a cheap substitute for butter. Over time, it became a Frankenstein’s monster of hydrogenated oils, colourants, emulsifiers, and synthetic vitamins — all engineered to resemble butter while undercutting it in cost. Early margarine was rich in industrial trans fats, which numerous studies have since linked to inflammation, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular disease.

Even though many manufacturers have reduced or removed trans fats in modern margarine, the product is still made by highly processing seed oils, often through chemical extraction and deodorisation — not something your great-grandmother would have recognised as food. In contrast, butter is made by churning cream. That’s it.

The Demonisation of Saturated Fat

One of the pillars of margarine’s marketing success lies in the demonisation of saturated fat. For decades, saturated fat was blamed for rising heart disease rates, based largely on flawed observational studies. Yet more recent research, including meta-analyses, has challenged this narrative. The relationship between saturated fat and heart disease is not as clear-cut as once believed.

Butter contains saturated fat, yes. But it also offers conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K2 (especially from grass-fed sources), and a natural fatty acid profile that humans have consumed for millennia. Margarine, by contrast, may be artificially fortified, but it simply doesn’t compare in terms of nutrient bioavailability or synergy.

The Role of Seed Oils in Inflammation

Many margarine products are made using vegetable oils such as canola, soybean, and sunflower oil. These are rich in omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). While omega-6 is an essential fatty acid, excessive intake relative to omega-3 can tip the balance toward systemic inflammation — a key player in many chronic diseases.

Modern diets are heavily skewed toward omega-6, thanks to the widespread use of industrial seed oils in processed foods. Butter, on the other hand, offers a more balanced fatty acid profile, with less potential for disrupting the body’s natural inflammatory responses.

Marketing vs Real Nutrition

The margarine vs butter debate often hinges on one key phrase: “heart healthy”. That label has been stamped on numerous low-fat, processed products over the years — many of which are far from nourishing. The real question is: who decides what qualifies as heart healthy?

Organisations like the Heart Foundation have historically relied on industry funding and outdated dietary guidelines. Their views on fat have slowly evolved, but they remain rooted in a model that favours products fitting a certain nutritional profile on paper — low saturated fat, high unsaturated fat — without always considering the real-world impact of ultra-processed replacements.

Whole Food Wins Every Time

If your primary goal is health, it’s hard to beat food in its natural state. Butter is a whole food — minimally processed, nutrient-rich, and easily recognisable as such. Margarine, no matter how it’s reformulated, remains a product of food science — not nature. This matters.

Our bodies evolved consuming fats from animals and plants in their natural form. Introducing chemically altered versions designed for cost-efficiency or shelf life doesn’t support optimal health. In fact, it raises a bigger question: how many chronic diseases are driven not by dietary fat itself, but by the kind of fat we’re consuming?

Butter in the Context of a Balanced Paleo Diet

For those following a Paleo-inspired approach, the choice between butter and margarine is crystal clear. While strict Paleo purists may exclude dairy altogether, many modern interpretations include ghee (clarified butter) due to its lactose-free profile and traditional roots.

Butter from grass-fed cows can be a fantastic source of nutrients — and it supports satiety, hormone production, and fat-soluble vitamin absorption. Used in moderation, it can be part of a deeply nourishing, anti-inflammatory way of eating. Compare that to margarine, which serves no purpose other than to mimic something better than itself.

Why Butter Is Still Under Fire

So why do health magazines and public health campaigns still push margarine? It often comes down to lingering dogma, commercial interests, and an unwillingness to challenge outdated paradigms. Once a narrative takes hold — “saturated fat equals heart disease” — it’s remarkably difficult to reverse, even in the face of new evidence.

It also doesn’t help that margarine is often cheaper and more profitable than butter, especially at scale. It’s easier to mass-produce, tweak to hit target fat ratios, and promote as part of heart-healthy “lite” diets. But none of those factors make it the better nutritional choice.

Don’t Be Fooled by Convenience

Convenience is another red herring in this debate. Sure, margarine spreads straight from the fridge and lasts for months, but that’s not a good enough reason to consume something that may compromise long-term health. Butter may require a bit of softening before spreading, but it’s a small trade-off for something real.

Real food isn’t always the most convenient option. Neither is prioritising your health. But when the long-term benefits include reduced inflammation, better metabolic health, and a lower toxic load, it’s hard to argue that convenience should win.

The Bottom Line

The truth is, no matter how “improved” margarine becomes, it will always be a product designed to imitate something nature got right the first time. Butter, especially when made from the milk of healthy, pasture-raised cows, is a naturally nourishing fat with a track record spanning centuries.

Rather than buying into a narrow, fear-driven debate about saturated fat, let’s zoom out. The real issue isn’t about butter vs margarine. It’s about real food vs ultra-processed food. It’s about tuning out the noise of marketing and trusting what our bodies have thrived on for generations.

So next time you find yourself reading a health magazine that sings the praises of margarine, remember this: just because something spreads easily, doesn’t mean it should be spread on your toast.

Conventional wisdom bad advice paleo diet primal-min

More Health Advice/ Conventional Wisdom

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Another gem from my afternoon of reading “health” magazines in all of their Conventional Wisdom glory. This one was in the October issue of “The Australian Healthy Food Guide”, in an article all about fat.

Choose a canola, sunflower or olive oil reduced fat table spread instead of butter

This sounds very similar to the advice in yesterdays post, based on an irrational fear of saturated fat.

When cooking, use spray oil wherever possible

I’ve not seen spray coconut oil, so can only assume they must mean spray “vegetable” oils. The whole reason for spraying is to use less fat. In that respect I guess it’s better to use less vegetable oil – but none would be a much bigger health improvement.

For salad dressings, choose a vegetable or seed oil such as canola, sunflower, olive, soybean, sesame or peanut

+1 point for the olive oil. But I’d personally rather have my salad undressed – with a serving of meat & an avocado to make sure I got some good fat with my lunch. As for putting soybean oil on my salad – what a horrible thought – don’t do it!

Choose low-fat varieties of foods whenever possible

Instead of natural, whole foods, with no added or altered ingredients, go for Franken foods instead!?

Choose reduced-fat or skim dairy foods

Fat soluble vitamins in the dairy can’t be absorbed, without the fat. Also without the fat, the sugar content is proportionally higher – increasing the insulin effect. Not to mention the fact fat is not the villain?

Fat is essential for so many functions. It is a great energy source, without the crash and burn of relying on carbohydrates for energy. I wonder how many more years it will take before health magazines catch up? Will they actually tell us to increase our intake of good fats and give up the grains? One day?

Why the War on Fat Is Misguided

It’s fascinating — and frustrating — to see how deeply the fear of fat is embedded in mainstream dietary advice. Decades of messaging from conventional health authorities have conditioned many of us to associate fat with disease, weight gain, and poor health outcomes. But the tide is turning. More research is surfacing to validate what the Paleo community has known all along: quality fats are essential, and vilifying them has done more harm than good.

Rather than reducing fat across the board, we should be scrutinising the type and source of fat we consume. Wholefood-based fats, as found in avocados, grass-fed meats, pastured eggs, and cold-pressed oils, nourish the body and support everything from brain health to hormone production.

Decoding the “Healthy” Spreads Myth

Let’s talk about margarine and “reduced fat spreads.” Despite the health halo they’ve worn since the 1980s, these products are typically the result of intensive processing involving chemical solvents, high heat, and artificial additives. Compare this to a slab of butter from pastured cows, which is minimally processed and naturally rich in fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.

Modern spreads may contain less saturated fat, but they’re often packed with omega-6-laden seed oils like sunflower and canola, which can contribute to inflammation when consumed in excess. If heart health is the goal, cutting these inflammatory oils is a better start than switching from butter to a plastic tub of yellow goop.

The Spray Oil Illusion

The advice to “use spray oil wherever possible” sounds logical from a calorie-counting perspective. Less oil, fewer kilojoules, right? But this tip misses the point entirely for those eating a Paleo or ancestral diet. Fat isn’t the enemy. In fact, including quality fats is what stabilises energy, supports metabolism and encourages satiety — all essential for a sustainable and healthy lifestyle.

Spray oils, often based on canola or blended vegetable oils, also carry propellants and preservatives. You’re far better off investing in a good-quality oil dispenser and using extra virgin olive oil or melted ghee to cook with intention — not fear.

Let’s Rethink Salad Dressings

The recommendation to pour industrial seed oils over your salad is perhaps one of the worst offenders in the guide. Soybean oil, for instance, is highly refined and often genetically modified. It’s also rich in omega-6 fatty acids, which are already overrepresented in the modern diet and contribute to systemic inflammation when unbalanced with omega-3s.

A simple Paleo-friendly dressing of olive oil and lemon juice not only enhances flavour but also provides bioavailable nutrients. Even better — top your salad with oily fish like sardines or salmon, a sliced avocado, or a handful of crushed walnuts for nutrient-rich fats that support overall wellness.

Low-Fat and Skim Dairy: A Nutritional Miss

Low-fat dairy continues to be promoted in mainstream nutrition — yet stripping dairy of its fat alters the entire nutritional profile. Fat helps slow down the absorption of lactose (milk sugar), which means it has a gentler impact on blood sugar. Removing it leads to a product with a higher glycaemic index and reduced satiety.

Furthermore, the fat in full-fat dairy plays a crucial role in the absorption of its naturally occurring fat-soluble vitamins. Calcium, often cited as the key benefit of dairy, is better absorbed in the presence of these vitamins — particularly vitamin D. It’s ironic that the very nutrients people are trying to get from dairy become harder to access when the fat is removed.

Why Fat Matters on a Paleo Diet

The Paleo lifestyle encourages an abundance of healthy fats from ancestral sources. Not only does this help stabilise energy, but it also supports vital functions such as:

Hormone production: Many hormones, including oestrogen and testosterone, are synthesised from cholesterol and fat.
Brain health: The brain is over 60% fat and relies on dietary fat — especially omega-3s — for optimal function.
Cell membrane integrity: Every cell in the body has a membrane made largely of fat.
Vitamin absorption: Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat-soluble and require dietary fat to be absorbed efficiently.

Instead of fearing fat, the conversation should shift to educating people about how to incorporate high-quality sources like grass-fed tallow, duck fat, coconut oil, and wild fish into their meals.

Breaking Up With Conventional Wisdom

When you look critically at mainstream advice, it becomes clear how much of it is rooted in outdated science, industry influence, and a fear-driven culture around food. The blanket push for low-fat everything has coincided with rising rates of obesity, diabetes and chronic illness — suggesting it may not be the solution we once thought it was.

Instead, by embracing whole, unprocessed foods and including quality fats in our diet, we can reclaim our health and break the cycle of dietary confusion. This doesn’t mean eating fat blindly — it means choosing fats that come from nature, not a factory.

How to Introduce More Good Fat Into Your Day

If you’re still getting comfortable with the idea of eating more fat, try starting with a few simple swaps:

Use full-fat coconut milk in your morning smoothie instead of skim milk or almond milk.
Top your meals with sliced avocado or a spoonful of tahini.
Add a pat of grass-fed butter or ghee to your steamed veggies.
Snack on olives or a boiled egg instead of low-fat yoghurt.

These are small changes that can significantly impact your energy, hunger levels, and satisfaction after meals.

Final Thought: It’s Time to Trust Real Food

It may take years before mainstream publications fully correct the messaging around fat. But as more people experience the benefits of a higher-fat, real-food-based approach, the momentum will grow. Until then, continue to question the advice handed down by conventional outlets and instead look to what your body tells you — fullness, clarity, strength, and stable energy are often the best indicators of a diet that’s working for you.

Ditch the sprays, the skim and the spreads. Real fat, in its natural form, has always been part of a healthy human diet.

Margarine or Butter paleo diet primal health nutrition-min

Margarine or Butter? Seriously?

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I couldn't help myself. I read through October's Issue of “Good Health” magazine today. Our ideas on what constitutes good health couldn't be much further apart.

I thought conventional wisdom was starting to come round to realising that natural, animal fat maybe isn't so bad after all. Clearly not.

So, let's compare the ingredients: –

Butter

Cream

Margarine (this example is Flora)

Water
vegetable oils (including sunflower oil) (so other vegetable oils are also in the mix, with a high omega 6 ratio)
plant sterol esters (12.5%) (this is an additive that reduces cholesterol, but interferes with absorption of fat soluble vitamins & hormones)
modified tapioca starch, salt (1.0%) (this is a chemically altered thickener)
buttermilk
Emulsifiers: Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, sunflower lecithin
Preservative: Potassium sorbate, citric acid, vitamin E, flavouring (often synthetic chemicals), vitamin B6, folic acid
Colour: Beta carotene, Vitamins A, D and B12

So, this article specifically mentions trans fats. Well, as Julianne Taylor clearly explains, “trans fat free” margarine doesn't sound too great either. And as for the trans fat in butter – natural trans fats are created in the stomachs of ruminants (like cows) – and have a completely different fatty acid profile to trans fats found in artificial foods. A lot of evidence suggests that these natural trans fats may actually be beneficial.

The Real Food Argument: Why Butter Still Wins

After comparing the minimalist ingredients of butter with the lengthy, chemical-laden list in margarine, the choice becomes glaringly obvious. Butter is a real, whole food. Margarine, on the other hand, is a synthetic product engineered to mimic something natural — and not very successfully at that.

What’s often overlooked in mainstream advice is that real food doesn’t need a health claim. Butter doesn’t come with flashy packaging or boast cholesterol-lowering promises — it simply nourishes. And unlike margarine, which is manufactured using industrial seed oils, butter comes from cream that has been churned, traditionally from pastured, grass-fed cows. No solvents, no mystery additives — just a natural fat that has been part of the human diet for thousands of years.

The Trouble With Plant Sterols

One of the most celebrated features of many margarine brands is the inclusion of plant sterol esters. These are promoted as heart-healthy due to their ability to lower LDL cholesterol. But here’s the catch: reducing cholesterol isn’t inherently a good thing. Cholesterol is essential for hormone production, brain function, and cell repair.

By interfering with cholesterol absorption, plant sterols may also impair the absorption of critical fat-soluble vitamins — like A, D, E and K2 — all of which play vital roles in immune function, bone health, and cellular metabolism. So, while margarine may lower a single biomarker, it may compromise broader health in the process.

Omega-6 Overload: The Inflammatory Downside

Most margarine products rely heavily on vegetable oils such as sunflower, soybean, and canola. These oils are high in omega-6 fatty acids — fats that are essential in small amounts but easily overconsumed in the modern diet. When omega-6 intake exceeds omega-3 intake by a wide margin (as is common today), it can tip the body into a chronic inflammatory state.

This imbalance has been associated with conditions such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and autoimmune disorders. Butter, especially from grass-fed cows, contains a more balanced fatty acid profile, including a small amount of omega-3 and beneficial saturated fats.

Natural Saturated Fat vs. Artificial Ingredients

Saturated fat continues to be demonised in many mainstream publications, yet the science behind this vilification has always been shaky. The human body is well adapted to using saturated fat as an energy source. It’s stable at high temperatures, which makes it ideal for cooking, and it supports structural integrity in cell membranes.

Meanwhile, margarine's complex cocktail of emulsifiers, thickeners, preservatives and colourings offers nothing that the body recognises as food. Rather than being metabolised and utilised, many of these synthetic additives must be processed and detoxified by the liver — a completely unnecessary burden for the body to carry.

What About the Vitamins Added to Margarine?

It’s true that margarine is often fortified with vitamins — but this is only because the original product has little to no nutritional value. These added nutrients are typically synthetic and may not be well absorbed. Butter, on the other hand, is a rich natural source of vitamins A, D, E, and K2 — especially when produced from grass-fed cows grazing on pasture.

These fat-soluble vitamins work synergistically. For example, vitamin D helps regulate calcium levels, while vitamin K2 ensures calcium is deposited in bones, not arteries. This delicate interaction is part of the brilliance of real food — something a laboratory simply cannot replicate.

Butter and CLA: The Unexpected Bonus

Butter from grass-fed cows is also one of the best dietary sources of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a type of fatty acid that has been linked to anti-inflammatory benefits, improved insulin sensitivity, and even fat loss in some studies. CLA is another naturally occurring fat that you won’t find in margarine.

Moreover, butter contains butyrate — a short-chain fatty acid that supports gut health, reduces inflammation in the digestive tract, and plays a role in energy metabolism. Once again, real food provides additional benefits that go far beyond calories and fat percentages.

Cooking With Confidence

If you've been cooking with margarine out of habit or perceived health benefits, it may be time to revisit your pantry. Butter, tallow, ghee, coconut oil and duck fat are all excellent for high-heat cooking and sautéing. They’re not only more stable and resistant to oxidation, but they also add delicious flavour and richness to dishes.

In contrast, cooking with margarine or vegetable oils can create harmful compounds when heated, including aldehydes and other oxidation products — particularly dangerous when reused or exposed to high temperatures.

Don’t Fear Real Food

The shift from butter to margarine was born out of 20th-century nutritional dogma, not long-term evidence. As more studies revisit the impact of dietary fats, it’s becoming clear that traditional fats like butter deserve a place back on our tables.

A Paleo perspective encourages you to ask better questions — not just “Is this food low in fat?” but “Is this food real?” and “How has it been processed?” When you answer those questions honestly, butter emerges as the clear winner.

Making the Switch

If you’re ready to replace margarine with butter in your everyday cooking, here are a few ideas to get started:

Spread it on veggies: Melt a knob of butter over steamed broccoli, carrots or zucchini for added richness and nutrients.
Bake with it: Use butter in your Paleo baking instead of margarine or vegetable oil for better flavour and stability.
Cook eggs in it: Scrambled or fried eggs taste infinitely better when cooked in butter or ghee.
Try ghee: If you’re sensitive to dairy proteins, ghee (clarified butter) is a great alternative that retains the benefits without the casein or lactose.

Final Thought: Margarine Has Had Its Day

Margarine was born from an industrial need and kept alive by outdated nutritional advice. Butter, by contrast, is a time-honoured, nutrient-dense fat that has earned its place in the kitchen. So next time you see a health magazine promoting the latest “heart-healthy” spread, take it with a grain of salt — and maybe a pat of grass-fed butter too.

Margarine, seriously?

Soy, Grains & Margarine for Better Health!

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I really shouldn't read health supplements any more. They generally just annoy me. But I could resist. I found this gem in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday.

Just before I ditched Paleo and went out to buy some soy and margarine, I thought I'd see if I could find out a bit more about the study.

So it appears the study split 351 men & post menopausal women into two groups for the six-month period. One ate low fat, the other low fat – with “special cholesterol lowering foods”. Hmm, interesting, low fat compared to low fat… The group with the special cholesterol lowering foods lowered their LDL by 13%. But then there was also a 22.6% drop out rate. This is taking me back to Tom Naughton's Science for Smart People lecture at the AHS…

The group with the “special food” also received sessions with a dietitian. The other low fat group did not.

They summed up saying that because the diet was complex, researchers couldn't tell which foods made a difference in lowering cholesterol. Excellent. Regardless, write ups of the study, like the one I saw are still identify these foods as being proven to help lower LDL: –

Soy proteins such as soy milk and tofu.
Viscous or “sticky” fibres from oats, barley and psyllium.
Nuts, including tree nuts and peanuts.
Plant sterols in margarine.

Whilst Loblaw (a Canadian food retailer), Solae (who sell Soy products) and Unilever (who own lots of products, including margarine) sponsored the study and provided some of the foods used, that obviously had no impact on the study. Whatsoever.

I think I'll stick to my high fat diet…

Digging Deeper: When Studies and Sponsorships Collide

It’s always wise to read between the lines when encountering “science-backed” nutrition claims, especially when those claims align neatly with processed food marketing. Studies funded or supplied by companies with direct financial interest in the outcomes — like Unilever, Solae, or Loblaw — are not inherently invalid, but they do deserve extra scrutiny. When a study concludes that “cholesterol-lowering foods” (conveniently available from the sponsoring companies) improve health outcomes, the conflict of interest should at least raise eyebrows.

In the case of this particular study, the fact that both groups followed low-fat diets makes it impossible to determine if the outcomes were related to the removal of saturated fat, the addition of sponsor-supplied foods, or simply the regular dietitian check-ins only one group received.

The Real Problem With Cholesterol-Lowering Narratives

Public health messaging has long been obsessed with lowering cholesterol, particularly LDL, as though it’s the single most important marker of health. But this is an oversimplification. Cholesterol is essential for producing hormones, supporting cell membranes, and helping the body produce vitamin D. Rather than blindly pursuing lower LDL numbers, a more balanced conversation around lipid ratios, inflammation, and metabolic health is overdue.

Numerous studies have shown that total cholesterol — or even LDL alone — is a poor predictor of heart disease in isolation. Far more telling are factors like triglyceride to HDL ratios, insulin resistance, and chronic inflammation. Yet articles like the one in the Sunday Telegraph continue to focus on LDL reduction via dietary tweaks that promote processed food products.

What the Study Didn’t Say: The Role of Inflammation

Interestingly, there’s little to no mention of inflammation in the article — or the study itself. Chronic inflammation is now widely recognised as a key driver of cardiovascular disease. Reducing inflammation through a nutrient-dense, low-toxin diet is a far more holistic and effective strategy than simply trying to push down cholesterol levels with soy milk and margarine.

A Paleo diet, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, and bioavailable nutrients, naturally addresses inflammation by removing the root causes: seed oils, refined sugars, grains, and ultra-processed foods. But this concept rarely makes headlines, perhaps because there’s no branded margarine to sell alongside it.

The Soy Dilemma

Soy protein is frequently positioned as a “health food” — particularly for its supposed benefits on cholesterol. However, soy comes with its own list of issues. Most commercial soy is genetically modified and heavily processed, often treated with hexane and other chemicals. Additionally, soy contains phytoestrogens, which can interfere with hormone function — especially concerning for those with thyroid issues or hormone-sensitive conditions.

In a wholefood-based Paleo context, soy is excluded not only because of its antinutrients and processing, but also because there are far more nourishing, less controversial sources of protein available — like grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, and wild-caught fish.

What About Oats, Barley and Psyllium?

The “viscous fibre” component of the cholesterol-lowering formula mentioned in the study usually comes from oats, barley, or psyllium husk. While soluble fibre can certainly support gut health and slow digestion, it doesn’t require grains to be effective. Vegetables like okra, sweet potato and pumpkin, as well as chia seeds and flaxseeds, also provide soluble fibre — without the blood sugar spikes and gluten-related inflammation grains can cause for many.

Barley and oats both contain gluten or gluten-like proteins that can trigger gut irritation and immune responses, especially in those with sensitivities. And let’s not forget: these grains are almost always heavily processed before they reach the supermarket shelf.

Peanuts and the “Nut” Misunderstanding

Yes, nuts were included in the study's cholesterol-lowering foods. But it’s worth noting that peanuts are not actually nuts — they’re legumes. This distinction matters in the Paleo world, where legumes are typically avoided due to their antinutrient content (like lectins and phytic acid), potential to cause gut irritation, and high omega-6 content.

Tree nuts, when consumed in moderation and in their whole, raw form, can be a good addition to a Paleo diet. However, over-reliance on roasted, salted nuts as a “health food” — especially when they’re used to bulk out ultra-processed snack bars — often leads to more harm than good.

And Then There’s Margarine

The inclusion of margarine in any list of “cholesterol-lowering foods” is perhaps the most telling sign of industry influence. Margarine is often made with hydrogenated or interesterified vegetable oils, designed to stay shelf-stable and mimic the texture of butter. While many brands now avoid trans fats due to public backlash, they still rely on heavily processed seed oils that are high in omega-6 fats and prone to oxidation — both of which can fuel inflammation.

Butter from grass-fed cows, by contrast, contains fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K2), healthy saturated fats, and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) — a naturally occurring fatty acid with anti-inflammatory properties. Yet somehow, margarine is still sold as the “heart-healthy” option. Go figure.

Why Real Food Doesn't Need a Sponsor

One of the most consistent themes in mainstream nutritional studies is that real, whole foods rarely get the spotlight — largely because they can’t be patented, branded, or profitably packaged. When large corporations fund dietary studies, the outcomes often reflect a subtle (or not-so-subtle) preference toward products they manufacture and sell.

A study comparing a standard Western diet to a Paleo template rich in real food would be fascinating — but good luck getting funding from a margarine company.

Final Thought: Stick With What Humans Have Always Eaten

The idea that cholesterol should be lowered at any cost is outdated and oversimplified. Rather than relying on margarine, soy milk and barley to prop up your lipid numbers, focus instead on a nutrient-rich, anti-inflammatory diet that your ancestors would recognise as food.

Eat eggs. Cook with butter. Add fatty cuts of grass-fed meat. Include plenty of vegetables, leafy greens and good-quality fats. These foods won’t just lower your risk of disease — they’ll make you feel better, stronger and more in control of your health.

And next time you read about a miracle food study in the Sunday paper, check who paid for it. You might find the answer is as manufactured as the margarine it’s trying to sell.