Palm oil

TBH I would rather have a thin scrape of butter than the crap that they put into spreads.
Unless you have a bad diet, your high cholesterol is unlikely to be linked with food, although biscuits and cake aren’t the best foods to eat anyway and a small piece of good dark chocolate is supposed to be good for you as is a small glass of red wine.
Plenty of info to be googled ref healthy diet, but sadly Palm oil (aka the devils work) is very difficult to avoid these days.

I wouldn't use anything other than butter either. Just use less of it.

I have tried to find soaps which don't use palm oil. Trying to reduce plastic in the house, I have gone back to solid bars of soap. They all seem to have palm oil in, so I just go for a good brand in the hope that they will be using sustainable products.

Yes I’m inclined to agree regarding the butter. I never spread it thickly anyway, and don’t use a lot. Find the taste of these spreads unpleasant in the main.
I’ve googled lots regarding healthy diet, including British Heart Foundation and Heart Matters, and they don’t give a blanket ban on the foods the way the GP did over the phone (He really wasn’t very helpful at all). So, my view is that they have more expertise in this area, so am trying to adapt their ideas for my diet. I’m finding that I’m not missing biscuits and cake at all - no craving for them, anyway. ?

Mapleleaf I'm in exactly the same situation regarding lowering my high cholesterol (8.1)
Didn't think semi skimmed milk was a no no but everything I used to eat I now can't.
So its peppers fruiet veg fish and dailey pots of cholesterol lowing drinks
And hopefully it will come down.
I read this with interest
Good luck

JackyB I use this.

Olive oil, sunflower, oil, cocoa butter/oil.

It’s very kind to my skin,?

I get it in a shop but they have a website.

Thank you, and good luck to you, too, Mary59nana.

It’s just finding a way round that suits, isn’t it? The only help I got from the surgery was an A4 sheet listing foods into 3 categories: low saturated fat/low cholesterol, medium saturated fat/medium cholesterol and high saturated fat/ high cholesterol. Other than that I’ve been left to find out for myself. I appreciate it’s mostly common sense, but some advice as to whether some things are ok as a very occasional treat or shouldn’t be touched at all or even some recommended websites to visit, would have been helpful. And just what do they consider a moderate amount of something to be - a handful, 2 handfuls, etc? I don’t eat big portions of anything anyway, but did like biscuits and cheese. Wouldn’t thank you for burgers, chips, bought pizzas, and other highly fattening foodstuffs that you can get from fast food places.

Yeo Valley butter is palm oil free.
If your concerned about palm oil and you eating benecol products be aware they all contain palm oil.

Iv got a fridge full of Benecol spread
Drinks and garlic cheese spread so I'm confused now and in fact had not thought about Palm oil untill I read this so it's back to the drawing board for me.
Once I have got it down I will have once a week treat but tbh iv had a bit of a fright regarding high cholesterol and my high reading.
Ps Dr has put me on Statins but it can take months to work so I'm a walking risk

A few years ago I made a great effort to cut out saturated fat after being told I had high level of bad cholesterol. Six months later a follow up test revealed I had lowered my cholesterol level by all of 0.5!

Tea3
Same here. It didn’t make a scrap of difference. 9.6 came down to 9.4. It’s been around that for the past 10 years.
Having read ( possibly ?) everything there is to read about statins I believe they were/ are the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on any health service.

It seems to me that there are a lot of mixed messages from different health bodies, it’s no wonder we get so confused. There’s a fair bit of contradictory advice out there too. I think the best thing we can do is try to eat sensibly, upping fruit and veg consumption, reducing portion size of meat, try to exercise and keep active as much as is possible, etc and make things such as dairy products, chocolate, etc, a very occasional treat only, but not deny ourselves completely.

My level is 6.9 apparently, though I don’t know which proportion is HDL, which is LDL and which is triglycerides -I was taken so much by surprise at the news (on a telephone conversation only) that I never thought to ask for a breakdown.

Two different sides to this thread. Palm oil as a foodstuff which is one thing but I believe the ‘harvesting’ of palm oil is absolutely disastrous for the planet and should be avoided unless the label says it’s been sustainably produced.

Mapleleaf**
Good advice there to I will be following

I htought the fears about saturated fats were proved to be mistaken?

It is seed oils and processed foods like "spreads" that cause harm to us and the environment.

Who pays for the studies saying avoid saturated fats? That is the clue....always follow the money

MerylStreep

Tea3
Same here. It didn’t make a scrap of difference. 9.6 came down to 9.4. It’s been around that for the past 10 years.
Having read ( possibly ?) everything there is to read about statins I believe they were/ are the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on any health service.

I agree.

My cholesterol was 5.8 I don't have a fatty diet. I had refused tablets I decided to cut down on carbs and I don't tend to eat fried food. I eat fruit but increased citrus fruits lemons limes grapefruit and tomatoes. I do have a smear of butter. My cholesterol reduced to 5 .1 it's not been tested since first lockdown. I am hoping it has reduced some more.
I recommend this book Eat your way to Lower Cholesterol Ian Marber & Dr Laura Corr ISBN 978-1-4091-5207-7 There are some lovely recipes I ordered it from Amazon.

I found a palm oil free vegan spread in the supermarket. It was more expensive than butter and wasn't low calorie. Personally, I don't like the taste, but my DD seems to.

Naturalist vegan spread (but not low fat) from Waitrose and Tesco

Naturli - autocorrect isn’t helpful

George’s gran is right, palm oil should be avoided if at all possible as it is causing enormous damage to the planet due to the amount of forest being cut gown in order to plant the palm trees.
Try finding soap or other toiletries without palm oil, it’s very hard, nay, impossible.

It’s very difficult to avoid palm oil altogether, isn’t as it is added to so many products both food and non food, because it is cheap. I’ve been surprised to see which food products it is added to. The destruction to forests and the habitat of the orang utan is horrifying.
Thank you for the link Redhead56.

silverlining48

George’s gran is right, palm oil should be avoided if at all possible as it is causing enormous damage to the planet due to the amount of forest being cut gown in order to plant the palm trees.
Try finding soap or other toiletries without palm oil, it’s very hard, nay, impossible.

Silverlining
My daughter has been working for this company for years.

tropicskincare.com/

Thanks Meryl that’s helpful .
My daughter alerted me to the palm Oil problem.