KEY POINTS:
A health researcher is urging people to give up butter for the sake of their hearts, after a survey found it is the preferred spread of more than one in 10 people.
The online Southern Cross Healthcare test, completed by more than 21,000 people, also found that 21 per cent prefer dark-blue-top milk.
These products contain high saturated fat - a risk for cardiovascular disease - compared with margarines and low-fat green-top milk respectively.
The survey shows that 6.7 per cent are at high risk of cardiovascular disease, calculated from risk factors disclosed by the participants, including eating habits. This equates to up to 195,000 New Zealanders who should see their doctors.
The attraction of butter and the creamier milk - and the risk of cardiovascular disease - was stronger in the country than in cities.
"These results demonstrate why the average New Zealander's diet contains more saturated fat than almost any other country, which is why we have one of the world's worst death rates from cardiovascular disease," said Auckland University health researcher Professor Rod Jackson, who designed the test.
While New Zealand's death rate from coronary disease has declined dramatically in the past 40 years because of changes such as reduced smoking, improved diet and better treatment, it still causes around 40 per cent of deaths.
Professor Jackson said New Zealand's heart-disease death rate was three to four times higher than Japan's, the world's lowest.
"There's no reason we shouldn't be the same."
The finding that 6.7 per cent were at high risk mirrored the results of academic studies and this was a surprise, Professor Jackson said. He had expected the on-line result to be lower. This was because those who responded to an on-line survey would normally tend to be healthier than the general population.
"Among this motivated, computer-literate population the proportion still eating butter and [dark]-blue-top milk was surprisingly high. Those are very simple things to change."
