Diabetes: Replacing butter with plant-based oils may reduce risk

are an essential part of the diet, but where they come from matters.

“We need fat in the diet because fats (lipids) make up our cellular membranes and are important for brain health,” Dana Hunnes, PhD, a clinical inpatient dietitian at RR-UCLA Medical Center told Medical News Today.

“Fats, plus the food they are found in… can influence heart health significantly. Plant-based sources of fats tend to also be found in foods that are high in , high in micronutrients (vitamins/minerals), antioxidants, and other healthy plant compounds that decrease inflammation in the body. Animal-based saturated fats and the proteins they’re found in increase inflammation which significantly increases the risk for heart disease, ischemic stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancers.”

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) recommends that less than 10 percent of overall calorie intake per day should come from saturated fats.

Roughly 70-75 percent of adults in the US exceed this recommendation in their daily energy intake.

The top contributor of saturated fats for adults are foods like deli sandwiches, grilled cheese, burgers, and hot dogs, as well as dishes like casseroles, quesadillas, and spaghetti with meatballs. The Dietary Guidelines state that these foods may contain ingredients from different food groups that are not very nutrient dense.

The guidelines recommend reducing saturated fat intake by making swaps from saturated fat to unsaturated fat options. Instead of cheese, swapping for nuts, seeds or avocado provides an unsaturated fat option.

Swapping butter for cooking oils that are high in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats can also reduce saturated fat intake.

When it comes to choosing the best plant-based oils to use in cooking, the experts who spoke with Medical News Today say that some options are better than others.

“For plant-based oils, those that are monounsaturated are frequently the healthiest. They are olive oil, avocado oil, peanut oil, and grapeseed oil. Other unsaturated plant-based oils (plant-based omega 3s) that are healthy include walnut oil, flax oil, and hemp oil,” Hunnes said.

But just because an oil is plant-based doesn’t mean it contains unsaturated fats.

“We’ve got things like palm oil, and coconut oil, which are also vegetable plant-based, but have high levels of saturated fat in them, like animals,” Mantzioris said. At the moment, the evidence base seems to suggest that coconut oil and palm oil aren’t going to be the best choices to consume.”

Reheated oils have been found to , which can have damaging effects on health.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise that canola oil, corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, and soybean oil can be suitable swaps instead of butter.

Mantzioris says another simple swap is not using butter in sandwiches.

“Often if you’re eating the sandwich at the time, you don’t need the butter in there, because butter has traditionally been used to waterproof the bread from the sandwich fillings. So that’s a quick and easy thing people can do is just to not add butter into their sandwiches. Another option might be to use spread in their sandwiches, which changes to a plant-based fat, that also adds a bit more flavor to it,” she said.

Hunnes says when swapping from a diet high in saturated fats to one high in plant-based unsaturated fats, the key is to make slow and simple changes over time.

“I always recommend starting by cutting back on animal-based foods and simultaneously increasing plant-based healthy foods/fats. More vegetables, more avocado, more fruits, more whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes, and this way you’re not walking around hungry. Slow and steady changes are often better tolerated and accepted than rapid cold-turkey changes.”
— Dana Hunnes, PhD