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
Grass fed isn’t sustainable large scale … not everyone has the privilege of having access to cows raised on large plots of land which only produce relatively small amounts of flesh and secretions compared to the amount of land they demand
This is a huge myth against grassfeeding perpetuated by Big Ag and Big Food who says we can’t “feed the world” without their toxic crops and frankenfoods.
Any suggestions for a dairy free butter that also doesn’t contain any sunflower lecithin. We are allergic to both dairy and sunflower and have been using the Earth balance vegan butter but I cannot stand the taste and only use it to cook with. Would like to find one to use as a spread.
Have you tried ghee? The vast majority of people allergic to butter can eat ghee because all the allergenic proteins have been removed.
Grass fed is a way to pay more and feel a little less guilty but not a sustainable alternative to support the current world demand for dairy and beef. There isnt enough land to meet the demand. Plus to produce enough milk, dairy farms have to continually inseminate the female cow and then pull the baby away from the mom, do they can save the milk for production and then sell the baby for veal or worse sometimes just thrown away if to weak.Is butter really worth that suffering? I vote no. Is there any other adult animal that relyies on the milk of another mammal besides humans?
Use non dairy spreads in moderation. Neither butter nor non dairy butter substitutes are “healthy”.
Exactly, though I’ve also heard (when I was discussing this with a former friend and he looked it up on his phone) that cows are injected with something to make them produce. Just as unethical of course as it’s still against their will, but at lease they aren’t effectively being raped.
I have a hunch that the only reason a cow would ‘run happily to get milked’ is because they know no other life. They have been ‘domesticated’ ie brainwashed to not know they should try and escape. Effectively they have Stockholm syndrome.
Grass feeding is a step in the right direction but ultimately the right thing to do is to try and get this animals (and others raised for food) reinstated in the wild and undo the evolutionary damage we have done to them.
Personally I live as an omnivore which I believe humans to biologically be, however I believe we should be hunting our prey in the wild, with simple weapons. Prey that has a chance to escape, which is the natural order of things.
I am not going to lie though, I currently buy organic grassfed meat from cows raised as livestock, as I am on food stamps and have limited access to anything else (I looked online before to find wild hunt game for sale but can’t afford it). I haven’t completely cut dairy out either but I feel guilty every time I eat it (because in my heart I know animals suffered) but it’s a process to change your life when you grew up eating one way all of it. But I’m trying and will keep trying. I do not plan to necessarily become vegan but I do want to get away form eating livestock animals and eat more as nature intended. I want to be part of keeping the natural world balanced, not part of destroying it.
Maybe so, but they’re still impregnated to keep producing milk and the calves are often slaughtered for veal, so it still leads to animal suffering in a less direct way.
Again, words spoken by someone who obviously has no idea what goes on at a dairy farm. Why don’t you go and actually tour a grassfed farm for yourself and see what ACTUALLY goes on there?
I have a friend who is an organic vegetable farmer who delivers to farmers markets around town … he and his wife laugh at vegan customers who rant and rave about “animal suffering” because they obviously have never visited an actual farm and have no idea “how many animals are killed” to simply run an organic vegetable farm!
I’d rather eat fake butter than cause an animal to suffer
Grassfed cows do not suffer … have you even been to an actual dairy farm before? Grassfed cows are very happy out on pasture … they come running to get milked.
I am on a dairy free, gluten free diet. I like to use a spread on toast. Any advice on what I should use? Earth Balance Organic, or is this very similar to Smart Balance?
I would suggest coconut butter. This brand is excellent: http://amzn.to/2iksFSu
This article made me want to eat some smart balance even more
My husband swears by “Smart Balence”but he was raised on old fashion margerine. I,on the other hand, was raised on Butter-Kerry Gold to be specific & use it to this day! My husband can’t seem to get past the label that says it is Non-GMO.Please, I need more info on how they can say “Non-GMO” if its not. I would like to get this product out of my home
There is nothing inherently wrong with genetically modified organisms. Donesticated dogs and cats are genetically modified organisms. How about provides an actual science-based arguement on what specific side effects have been proven to be caused by GMO’s rather than that they just sound scary, and then maybe people will take you seriously.
You are confusing cross breeding with genetic engineering which are completely different things! Genetic engineering involves using the DNA of ANOTHER SPECIES to modify a plant or animal. Crossbreeding is just using the DNA WITHIN THE SAME SPECIES. A GMO cat or dog does not yet exist. There are apparently GMO cows in China that have been genetically altered with HUMAN GENES. Yikes.