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
Allow me to play devil’s advocate.
Smart Balance has more mono and polyunsaturated fats than butter, which is derived from animals. For vegetarians and cost – conscious consumers who want a product that tastes like butter, trans fat – free margarine is a healthy alternative. A tablespoon of butter has 80 calories and high saturated fat content. A lighter margarine can help people on diets with caloric restrictions. I have high cholesterol that is genetic so it is good when I reduce the amount of animal products that I eat. “Natural” does not automatically mean healthy.
There are legitimate concerns about the use of preservatives in food products but Smart Balance is no worse than thousands of other grocery products including cereals, jams, cookies, cookies, cakes, and most other products. It is probably safer for the consumer (and cheaper) to have a product on the shelf that stores well, rather than one that molds in a week. The criticism about products made in factories is a matter of personal taste. After the Industrial Revolution factories streamlined the process of preparing and packaging many common products. It reduces the cost of creating a product and thus lowers the end price for both the consumer and the company. Nothing is lost when a machine wraps a label around a jar of mustard or stamps a “best by” date on an item. Factories are not bad, although it may be healthy to steer clear of heavily processed meats or nutritionally stripped “white” grains. There are also healthy modern processes like pasteurization that prevent harmful bacteria from causing illness or death. In the late 19th century a major cause of death in the United States was from consuming tainted dairy products. Many of these bacteria are naturally occurring and cannot be sanitized in full without a process like pasteurization. Back to personal taste, people are free to stick with “natural” alternatives close to the farm and minimally processed. But even products sold at Whole Foods are produced in factories and follow local standards.
There is also criticism about Smart Balance over the alleged use of genetically modified ingredients. This argument is legitimate but sometimes extreme. There is nothing unethical in my mind about altering the DNA of a food product to make a plant more hardy against insects, or to increase the nutritional content of the yield. Isn’t it healthy to reduce pesticide use, or eat vitamin – rich fruits and vegetables? One can always retain a depository of heirloom crop seeds. For positive examples of GMO foods, read about “golden rice,” which contains enhanced levels of vitamin A. Those levels may prevent many children in the third world from blindness due to malnutrition. But there are gray areas and ethical questions about the use of GMO foods. I am opposed to the idea of a corporation patenting a gene or creating a sterile crop, forcing the farmer (peon) to buy seed from that company or risk a lawsuit in the case of cross pollination from the GMO crop.
All in all, I consider the concern about Smart Balance to be largely about emotion and taste rather than logical thinking. I will continue to use margarine with my meals because I find it healthier than consuming an animal product heavy in saturated fat. The heavy processing doesn’t bother me.
Paranoia about saturated fat is based on fifty years of flawed (and sometimes, as in Ancel Keys’ widely cited “Seven Countries Study”, fraudulent) research. Research over the last decade has made it quite clear, as people knew up to the Fifties, that there’s nothing wrong with saturated fat. (Just for fun, sometime, look up what your brain is made of.)
Unfortunately, most nutritionists and MDs haven’t caught up yet. But that doesn’t mean you should be parroting old conventional wisdom when you could be reading current science.
What? “Current science” teaches that simple carbohydrates are the leading cause of obesity due to the easy conversion of glucose to stored fat in the body. It doesn’t teach that high fat consumption leads to better heart health or slimmer waistlines. People also knew in the fifties that radar was okay to have in police cars (cancer???) and that reading in dim light led to eyesight problems (not true). I just read a well thought out post that brought a tone of logic to this discussion. Not sure what you read. I don’t understand how you can expect people to respect your opinion (let alone take it as medical fact) when you fill your arguments with fact-less, emotionally charged (and often insulting) language. Your entire standpoint is based on the very “old conventional wisdom” that you just lambasted “it’s a secret” for citing.
Exactly! Whats wrong with these people: believing this garbage science!!! Oh well, let them eat their so called “Healthy food” and Ill stick with my usual animal-fat-rich diet, which gives me tons of energy and will keep my heart healthy!
I HATE the new Smart Balance ad that shows “Happy Danish People” so “thankful” that Smart Balance came to the rescue once Trans Fats were banned in Europe. Are you KIDDING ME? Can Danes really be that STUPID?!?
Oh, I remember seeing a very bizarre ad once, perhaps it was for Silk Soy Milk – it was a family of cartoon COWS living like people and how the Mama cow and baby cows all switched to SOY milk because it is “healthier” and the mama cow secretly replaced the Papa cow’s REAL milk with soy milk, and he tasted it and ended up loving it – and then they were a “Happy, healthy” family of cows sitting around the table eating cereal and drinking coffee. The message: Even Cows don’t drink real milk because it’s bad for you. INSANE!!! Sadly, most poor cows ARE force-fed SOY and unhealthy cereal grains. How ironic!
Wow I remember my mom always had a tub of Country Crock “butter” in the fridge. Yuck!
I’m not trying to impose but what is the real need to make a spread when you can just let the butter sit out a little longer, and it spreads just fine that way?
if you let the butter sit awhile, it spreads great.
My husband still eats margarine, but I try to avoid it. When he cooks, I try to get him to use that instead of his margarine in cooking. I started using butter after I read the statistics that as the rate of margarine use goes up and butter has gone down, heart disease has gone up.
The easiest way to convice people to not eat Margrine or any of that other crap is to put a tub out where there are mice. They will not touch it. Put butter out and it will be gone in no time. Margrine is 1 molocule from plastic……..
I’ve heard that chocolate is one molecule away from cocaine; does that make chocolate unhealthy?
Although I am freaked out by the fact that animals don’t touch margarine. Maybe they smell something that humans are not able to?
what’s the chemical formula for chocolate? i am really interested in comparing that of cocaine (C17H21NO4) with that of chocolate. thanks.
Theobromine (theobromide[2]), formerly known as xantheose,[1] is a bitter alkaloid of the cacao plant, with the chemical formula C7H8N4O2. It is found in chocolate
Now I don’t support any fake food, but I dislike this argument. Everything is one molecule away from something that is bad…. Think carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, or water and hydrogen peroxide….
Animals don’t touch margarine because it is NOT food… That is the worst thing, not that it is “one molecule away from plastic”…
I think the point of margarine being one molecule away from plastic is that margarine IS NOT food…
I would agree it is NOT food, but I just hate when others say this and then those who are “pro-margarine” can use this to make us sound like we don’t know what we are talking about. Let’s just use facts!! Margarine raises risk of heart disease, butter from grass-fed cows (A2 cows) do NOT raise risk of any disease from the use of butter.
In fact, butter, FCLO/BO, bone broth soup, etc can all heal cavities because of the minerals in them. What else can you eat that has the power to heal cavities and holes in your teeth right before your eyes (proven with x-rays even)?
Margarine actually shares no chemical similarities with plastic. The primary ingredients in margarine include vegetable oil, skim milk, salt, and emulsifiers. Plastics, on the other hand are composed of long molecules called polymers. Even if margarine was “one molecule away” from being plastic, such a claim has no real meaning in terms of suitability as a food product. The slightest variation in molecular structure between two substances can have a huge impact on the qualities of those substances. For example, water is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H2O). Hydrogen peroxide, on the other hand, is composed of two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms (H2O2). Although the two substances are only one atom different, they are vastly different substances.
It is important to note that, although margarine is not one molecule away from being plastic, it has been shown to possibly increase the risk of heart disease in people (depending on the fat used to make the margarine. In 2003, researchers found that trans fats could be the culprit in the development of coronary disease.
Awesome details here on There is Nothing Smart About Smart Balance – food is very important 🙂
I was raised that way too – so gross!!! My parents still insist margarine is the ‘healthy’ choice, even though my father had his first heart attack and double bypass at 52 after years of margarine and lots of processed foods. He’s had 3 different heart/blood vessel related surgeries, is on countless meds and still believes what his cardiologist says is best. Of the people I know, the ones who are the least healthy are the ones eating ‘frankenfood’ and other processed garbage substitutes. That just confirms that I am doing what’s right by my kids. I just don’t get how people can do that to their kids. Insane.
Love this post, Sarah! We must be on the same wavelength today – I just started making my own butter-EVOO blend to spread on toast. While making the spread the other day, I ate a few tablespoons of butter because it just looked so fantastic… thinking about it later, I realized I hadn’t had much good fat lately. Amazing how our bodies know what we need, isn’t it?
I agree with you, but it can be misleading. I have so many friends who think they are eating smarter by eating that stuff. My sister in law and her family are dairy free. Any good choices for them? I am going to send her your post.
Great job! Eventhough I knew better, I was beginning to think about using it!! thanks for the wake up call!
If they are dairy free, they could choose extra virgin olive oil, or for baking purposes (since the flavor of that oil may be undesired there) choose coconut or avocado oil, or a mix of the two.
(I’ve steered away from margarine and those spreads for ages, even before I discovered the Whole Food movement.)