The heavily industrialized frankenfood known as Smart Balance should more aptly be named Stupid Balance when you examine the ingredients list!
I’ve had it. Everyone has her limits and I’ve reached mine. If one more person who claims to eat healthily tells me that he/she uses Smart Balance or any of those health robbing butter substitute “spreads”, I think I’m going to scream. This includes other pseudo-foods like Egg Beaters too.
A loud, obnoxious, ear piercing, wine glass shattering SCREAM!
You see, there is nothing remotely “smart” about Smart Balance unless of course, you happen to be a shareholder of the company. In that case, you would be very happy with the cheap, rancid, genetically modified vegetable oils used to manufacture substitutes for butter resulting in a very low cost of production and handsome profit margins.
Don’t think for one moment that Smart Balance could possibly be made in the comfort of your own kitchen the way lovely yellow butter can easily be churned from cream in a bowl with a hand mixer.
No way! A frankenfood as complex as Smart Balance or any of the many other “spreads” on the market requires synthesis in a factory in all its high tech, food denaturing glory. Smart Balance and margarine spreads like it is chemistry experiments, not food!
Get a load of the catchy marketing on the Smart Balance website:
It’s funny how these margarine manufacturers always talk about “using it” and “loving it” like butter.
Why would people do that anyway?
Mmmm. Maybe because these folks need some healthy fats like REAL butter perhaps??
I know a die-hard vegetarian who once told me that every now and again when she craves a big, thick juicy steak, she gives in and eats one.
Smart gal. Cravings can tell us a lot about ourselves – if we’ll only listen – from the state of our gut as in the case of craving sugar and having a gut imbalance problem to craving a steak due to the complete proteins only animal foods can provide (soy is NOT a complete protein, by the way. Don’t even get me started on that one).
So, when that craving for all things buttery comes over you, it is always best to get some Real Butter and slather it on anything that seems remotely feasible at the moment.
A vegan community in South Florida suffering from severe dental decay issues likes to eat raw butter straight out of the tub with a spoon, I’m told. Now, that’s a serious craving for the “buttery taste”!
What Exactly is in Smart Balance?
Let’s take a look at the ingredients in Stupid, er – I mean, Smart Balance:
When this post was originally published, here were the ingredients in Smart Balance (original):
Natural oil blend (soybean, palm fruit, canola, and olive oils), water, contains less than 2% of whey (from milk), salt, natural and artificial flavor, vegetable monoglycerides and sorbitan ester of fatty acids (emulsifiers), soy lecithin, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, Vitamin D, dl-a-tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E), lactic acid, beta carotene color, and potassium sorbate, and calcium disodium EDTA (to preserve freshness).
Ingredients Analysis
Shall we analyze this rather long list of ingestibles?
- The soybean and canola oils are almost certainly genetically modified. Frankenfood at its finest!
- The olive oil isn’t even extra virgin olive oil and is likely cut with cheap vegetable oils like most olive oil on the market. Can we say cheap, cheap, CHEAP?
- Natural and artificial flavor – this must be where that “buttery taste you crave” part comes in. Excellent stuff if you dig tricking your taste buds (newsflash, you won’t trick your tummy though. At least not for long. You’ll be craving that “buttery taste” soon after and more than likely sticking your head in a big bowl of ice cream by 9 pm).
- Soy lecithin – yet another genetically modified ingredient.
- Vitamin A palmitate – the synthetic form of vitamin A – the kind that is dangerous. Since there’s not much natural about Smart Balance in the first place, “fortification” with synthetic vitamins seems logical!
- Vitamin D – the label doesn’t even specify what type, but I can pretty much guarantee it’s synthetic D2, which won’t help at all in avoiding vitamin D deficiency symptoms. Is this the wondrous, natural vitamin D3 everyone – even Oprah – raves about? Brilliant marketing and wishful thinking don’t make it so.
- Beta carotene color – the normal color for factory-produced margarine like Smart Balance is a very unappetizing grey, so the color is definitely needed here to fool the masses. Don’t be fooled that this beta carotene adds natural Vitamin A either. Beta carotene is not true vitamin A!
- Potassium sorbate – a supposedly safe food preservative that inhibits microbial growth. Safe at least until they find it isn’t. Three cheers for being a guinea pig!
- Calcium disodium EDTA – an organic pollutant which breaks down in the environment into ethylenediamine triacetic acid and then diketopiperazine. Diketopiperazine is a persistent organic pollutant, similar to PCBs and DDT. Not only does Smart Balance pollute the bodies of those who eat it, but it also pollutes the environment too!
Smart Balance 7 Years Later
Let’s analyze the ingredients again 7 years later. Smart Balance has, in the interim, gotten significant press on its “pledge” to remove GMOs from its ingredients. Has it happened yet? Apparently not. Don’t hold your breath on that one. Not much improvement here despite an outcry from consumers to do better.
- Vegetable oil blend (canola, olive, and palm oil)
- Water
- Contains less than 2% salt
- Pea protein
- Natural and artificial flavors
- Sunflower lecithin
- Vitamin A Palmitate
- Beta-carotene (color)
- Vitamin D
- Monoglycerides of vegetable fatty acids (emulsifier)
- Potassium Sorbate
- Lactic acid
- Calcium Disodium EDTA
Let’s analyze the (few) changes.
Little Improvement in Smart Balance Ingredients
First, the GMO soybean oil has been removed. While this is a positive, unfortunately, GMO canola oil is still in there as the primary vegetable oil.
Second, pea protein has replaced the whey protein from before. This is apparently an effort to make Smart Balance dairy-free. Is pea protein any healthier than whey protein? Unfortunately not. All protein powders are highly processed and not a healthy choice.
The GMO soy lecithin has been replaced with sunflower lecithin. This is a solid improvement and a step in the right direction.
Two new ingredients include lactic acid and monoglycerides of vegetable fatty acids. While lactic acid is not really a problem, it could be from a GMO source. The originating food for lactic acid is not specified. Similarly, the vegetable oil that is used to derive the emulsifying fatty acids is not specified. In those situations, I’ve learned to pretty much assume the worst … they are most likely of GMO origin. If they were nonGMO you can be sure Smart Balance would trumpet as much on the label like they have identified the source of the lecithin as nonGMO sunflower.
Everything else appears to be the same.
All in all, Smart Balance has improved from a grade of “F” to a “D-” in seven years. Is it healthy to use? Nope. It’s still frankenfood and not a good choice for those who understand the critical importance of natural, healthy fats in the diet.
Butter is Always Best!
Nothing manufactured in a factory can ever beat the simple, natural, whole nutrition of plain BUTTER and other whole traditional fats. No genetically modified, artificial flavors or organic pollutant preservatives needed. Loads of natural form of vitamins A, D, and E that really will boost your immune system unlike the synthetic versions in margarine spreads like Smart Balance.
Be sure not to buy butter from cows fed genetically modified feed, however, like Kerry Gold is rumored to do.
Grass-fed butter is what you are looking for (quality sources)!
Butterfat is far superior to the rancid, highly processed vegetable oils in Smart Balance. While not hydrogenated, the edible oil processing, called interesterification, is still very much denaturing and is arguably worse for cardiovascular health than transfats.
On the other hand, butter, particularly grass-fed butter, is one of the richest sources of vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 is the magical X-Factor written about by Dr. Weston A. Price which is known to prevent arterial calcification which is a very strong (if not the strongest) predictor of cardiovascular disease risk, NOT cholesterol levels. Natural cholesterol in the diet supplied in forms such as grass-fed butter and eggs are extremely beneficial to health!
Folks with low cholesterol suffer from heart disease at the same rate as those with high cholesterol. Don’t tell that to the folks in the marketing department at Smart Balance, though. They’re doing really well with that catchy marketing slogan that associates the use of Smart Balance with “healthy” cholesterol levels.
What if You Have a Dairy Allergy?
For those with dairy allergies, natural and truly healthy butter substitute spreads made with unrefined traditional oils are now becoming available. This one is my favorite which blends virgin coconut oil and that anti-oxidant powerhouse, red palm oil without any additives, fillers, GMOs or destructive processing.
Once you get past the marketing hype, it sure seems that the more appropriate name for Smart Balance would be “Stupid Balance”, don’t you think?
References
Interesterification of Vegetable Oils, by Dr. Mary Enig
Whole Health Source, Butter, Margarine, and Heart Disease
Most illogical arguments ever. Smart balanace is unhealthy because (1) it uses high-tech ingredients and proceses (2) it has complicated sounding ingredients (3) it’s cheap to make (4) it doesn’t come from a cow.
None of those are remotely logical reasons why something would be unhealthy. If you have a religious objection to foods made by science rather than animals, that’s one thing. But don’t confuse that with the food being unhealthy.
I never read all the comments so this might have been discussed already. I know this was about Smart Balance Butter but can you tell me anything about Smart Balance Peanut Butter?
Thanks,
Taj
ACK! I’ve been feeding my family this brand to include the peanut butter for a few years now!!! Dumping it right now! But what damage have I already done? Just now learning about all this crazy food industry stuff! Can you undo what you have already done?
I am curious…… I hear what your saying and I believe it.. We switched to butter years ago and love it. However, my daughter has a severe dairy sensitivity…….what options do we have?
Any info would be helpful… Thanks!
lactose or casein allergy? If lactose, use raw milk and you can make butter from it.
Casein, try making sure your dairy is A2 and NOT A1 dairy…. That might help a ton…
The Dr’s comments here prove the point that MD’s are NOT trained in nutrition. You don’t have to be a Dr to now that REAL FOOD is what is healthy. “Spreads” are not real food no matter how you twist it. And some of you don’t realize that unless it says NON-GMO …it always is. So, if canola and soy is listed and doesn’t say NON-GMO, that means it is a GMO product. Same with Organic foods. You now if it’s not listed as Organic, then it’s a conventional food. That is common sense and how Sarah can come to the conclusion that these ingredients are probably GMO products. All you people googling these ‘balance’ products and ending up here are in the wrong place, obviously. This is a traditional food blog, meant to educate people on how to avoid fake food that the bodies doesn’t know how to use, thus causing serious illnesses as it fights to store and rid the body of these things. Heart disease is a ‘new’ problem for humans… so for thousands of years we’ve eaten these animal fats and suddenly since around the mid 1920’s when the first heart attack recorded..THIS is when humans suddenly developed this problem? It is the vegetable oils, refined carbs and high sugar content of highly processed, industrialized food that is causing these problems. I’m a 40 yr old woman who had really great cholesterol readings before, but since eating real foods, healthy fats in moderation (coconut/olive oil, butter, raw milk and cream, etc), my cholesterol numbers have actually DROPPED. Somebody want to explain that? How about the highly educated people here that want to see numbers? I eat real food 90% of the time, buy veggies from an organic farm, using organic seeds, buy raw milk, cheese and butter from a local farmer who has grass fed pastured cows, make my own bread from organic wheat grown just up the road. I eat PLENTY of wild meat (hubby hunts for elk, deer and antelope). It’s taken YEARS to make all the changes and all the while I am getting healthier! And my tooth decay has reversed because I’m eating REAL food and I’m actually getting high amounts of vitamins and minerals. This all actually goes for my whole family of 4. Who wants to argue with this? If you stop looking only at statistics, and studies and numbers and look at real food and the health it brings, you will become far more educated in nutrition all on your own without needing to prove credentials. You want my credentials for this ‘advice’? I’ll show you my latest health report and tell you how I get a better report every year by eating real food, not weak substitutes the body doesn’t recognize.
And why are some of you surprised this was a rant? She tells you right up front she is going to rant, which is usually emotionally charged. She’s had it with mis-information, which some of you still ‘buy’. Many of you here have proved her point. I don’t know Sarah but many ‘traditional foodies’ totally get this blog post and have premium health to prove that healthy fats and meats from responsibly raised animals are what the body needs to help us absorb the fat soluable vitamins and minerals and maintain true health. Don’t shoot the messenger…
I don’t know how anyone can eat something made of cow’s mammory gland sucretions. Yuk! I will stick with Earth Balance, thank you.
Are you being serious?
Yeah, because GMO Canola oil, other oils, chemicals and other things are so much healthier than raw milk butter from grass fed A2 cows…
8/
Okay then…..
Raw milk cures many things, you can’t be lactose intolerant to raw milk, no hormones/antibiotics/grain in our grass fed A2 cows, etc. It is a perfect food that you can live healthily on long term. It has everything that you need to be healthy.
Okay, so there I stood in the supermarket, craving fried chicken and standing in front of the cooking oil section. What to get—Crisco (the best, accoring to “The Help”), canola oil, olive oil, Wesson Cooking Oil, or Smart balance Cooking Oil. I chose the Smart Balance and fried my chicken in one inch of it (basically the whole bottle). I thought I was doing a good thing, but evidently not? I’m confused. If Smart Balance cooking oil was not the right choice for frying my chicken, what is then?????
Baking/grilling/stovetop/etc would have all been better than frying in it….
Olive oil is for use at low temps, never fry in olive oil.
Crisco is far from natural, avoid this at all times.
Canola oil is not good to consume, there is no “canola plant”, it is rapeseed, which is a natural pesticide.
If you really need to fry something, I would personally use something like peanut oil…Provided of course that you aren’t allergic to peanuts. Otherwise grapeseed oil is great for sauteeing, also coconut oil is great to use.
My 2 year old has a severe dairy allergy. We have been using Earth Balance as a substitute. Is there any butter like substance that you would recommend in the place of these “balance” buttery spreads?
ghee is great to use, no dairy left in it at all.
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