Are vegetable cooking products and spreads healthy?
Dutch farm milk products, you know them. A dash of cream with the kale, a dollop of whipped cream on the apple pie and a nice layer of butter on your toasted sandwich. It gives flavor to anything you want. But what about the growing range of (partly) vegetable cooking products, cooking fats and spreads? What are the pros and cons of these and how healthy are they?
In order to qualify as cream and butter, these products must be obtained from cow’s milk. Furthermore, cream must have a minimum fat content of 10 percent, while whipped cream must have a minimum fat content of 30 percent. The fat percentage of butter is much higher, namely 80 to 90 percent. Cream and butter also contain water, salt and fat-free dry substances.
Alternatives to cream and butter
As an alternative to cream and butter, the share of (partly) vegetable products for cold or hot dishes and spreads for bread is growing.
Examples of this are:
Mix of milk and vegetable fats
- Finesse, Blue Band
100 percent vegetable fats
- Soya Cuisine, Alproz
- 100% vegetable margarine, Becel
Why vegetable?
An advantage of (partly) vegetable products is that they provide less energy or calories and less saturated fat than animal cream and butter. See the nutritional values below.
| Product (per 100 grams) | Energy (kcal) | Saturated fat (grams) | Saturated fat (percentage) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sour cream | 197 | 12.5 | 65.1 |
| Finesse | 160 | 4.8 | 32.0 |
| butter | 737 | 52.9 | 65.2 |
| 100% vegetable margarine | 618 | 17.0 | 24.3 |
Alternatives with less energy contribute to a healthy(er) body weight. In addition, products with less saturated fat are important, because saturated fat increases the bad LDL cholesterol and lowers the good HDL cholesterol. Less energy and less saturated fat therefore lower the risk of developing:
- type 2 diabetes
- high bloodpressure
- gallstones
- heart and vascular disease
- back and joint complaints
- some types of cancer
The vegetable products are made on the basis of vegetable oils, for example sunflower oil, linseed oil and rapeseed oil. These vegetable oils (especially linseed oil) contain omega-3 fatty acids, such as: alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). Omega-3 fatty acids protect against cardiovascular disease and are part of a healthy diet.
Extra vitamins
Extra fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamins A, D, E and K are often added to vegetable products. An example for comparison per 100 grams of product: butter contains 0.3 micrograms of vitamin D and 100 percent vegetable margarine contains 7.5 micrograms of vitamin D. This enrichment contributes to a higher vitamin D intake. Getting enough vitamin D is important for preventing bone loss or osteoporosis and/or muscle weakness.
In particular, the 100 percent plant-based alternatives fit well within the vegetarian, vegan and lactose-free diet. These products do not contain any ingredients of animal origin. It is important that the other dietary intake provides sufficient protein, iron, vitamin B1 and vitamin B12.
“Less animal and more plant-based food” is one of the recommendations of the Dutch Health Council. Choosing plant-based products is therefore an opportunity to eat more plant-based. This contributes to a more sustainable diet, which, among other things, limits the environmental impact of food.
The disadvantages of vegetable
If you look at the ingredient list of herbal products, you may see ingredients that you did not expect. The main ingredient (listed first in the ingredients list) of plant-based alternatives to cream is water. Furthermore, the vegetable products mainly contain vegetable oils, emulsifiers, thickeners, sugar, salt and aromas.
Are these extra additives healthy? Water and vegetable oils are healthy and fit within the Wheel of Five. Emulsifiers and thickeners are added to improve consistency and viscosity. If you eat emulsifiers and thickeners in normal proportions, there are no known adverse health effects.
Watch out for sugar and salt
Sugar and salt are added by manufacturers to improve the taste. Eating too much sugar and salt could contribute to the development of chronic diseases. It is therefore important to take a critical look at the ingredients list. Make sure that sugar and salt are not the main ingredients of the vegetable product.
Another possible disadvantage of vegetable products is the taste. Taste largely determines our food choices. It’s not for nothing that chefs and pastry chefs say: “The fatter, the better”. Animal cream and butter contain more fat (and therefore more taste) than vegetable products, which consist for a greater part of water. To overcome these differences in taste, aromas are added to vegetable products. As a result, the taste difference is not so bad these days.
It is also a disadvantage that vegetable products are a few cents more expensive than animal cream and butter. Price differences weigh heavily for many people. However, the rest of your diet determines whether these price differences are noticeable in your wallet.
Good alternative
In short, there are more and more tasty vegetable products in circulation that form a good alternative to traditional cream and butter. Plant-based products have many health benefits. You can include these advantages in your trade-off between plant and animal products. Nevertheless, a lick of butter on your sandwich every now and then really can’t hurt.
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