for christ's sake NHS

[lolliwillowes]

Why are you still advising people to choose low fat margarine over butter?
The entire food plate thing is a disaster, encouraging people to stay healthy long term by substituting natural fats for Frankenstein-fats.

Surely I am not BU?

Well said @hamstersarse

Yes to hamsterarse .
Eating advice is critical right now. In part because of covid.

@Spanielsarepainless

The decrease in consumption of saturated fat is mirrored by a catastrophic increase in dementia. Brains need saturated fat.

This is because they need to ditch BMI. It doesn’t work for everyone because an athlete will always so as obese because of muscle density over fat and yet doctors keep banging on about it. We know it’s outdated but they won’t change.

@Bertiebiscuit

Doctors get no training in nutrition - so the NHS isn't a great place to get up to death food advice

Yeah because only drs work for the nhs

Sorry, didn’t mean to quote that comment. Was trying to reply to the one above 😂

My DD found out in A level biology that margarine is, molecularly, "scarily similar to plastic". (Her very words) She's no eaten it since.

Butter is as much like plastic as margarine is like plastic.

www.healthyfood.com/advice/fact-or-fiction-margarine-is-one-molecule-away-from-plastic/

@knittingaddict

This might be interesting to some:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3t902pqt3C7nGN99hVRFc1y/which-oils-are-best-to-cook-with

I didn't know vegetable oils were so bad for you, but I only ever use it to fry eggs, which we rarely eat. I use refined olive oil for frying, butter in some dishes and sometimes groundnut oil. I might ditch the vegetable oil completely now. I didn't get on with the taste of rape seed oil.

What's 'refined olive oil'?

Fordian It's been treated so that it has a higher smoking point and is more suitable for high temperature frying. That's as much science as I know about it off the top of my head. I use virgin olive oil for dressings and some cooking and the refined stuff for frying food.

@Fordian as above that's the gist of it.
Levels of refinement indicate how close to or far removed from the original product it is.
Imagine putting a load of olives through a big high pressure mechanical press to extract the oil, then you use that oil. That's 'extra virgin olive oil'.
In reality of course it's not quite that simple but that's the gist of it.
It's a fairly low-yield method though with lots of left over olive pulp, which still contains oil, which is why e.v.o.o. is more expensive. In order to maximize yield there will be other processes involved.
The extra virgin oil you had will be filtered to remove some components to make it more heat-stable, increase shelf life and so on.
At the other end there is solvent-extraction to get as much oil as possible and high-refinement to stabilize it.
Think of white bread and whole meal bread. White bread is more refined, as in it's made with flour that has had the wheatgerm, husks etc. removed. It increases yield of a product, increases its range of uses, extends shelf life, but reduces nutrients, flavours, texture.