Is Butter healthy for you?

Written by Dr harold Gunatillake-Health writer

There was butter always on the dining table the container immersed in another vessel with water to keep away the insects in the old days in our homes. That butter was golden yellow in colour and had a very special dairy taste, shipped from New-Zealand.

Then, the era came when saturated fat including butter was demonised, and butter was replaced with margarine – a synthetic trans-fat, became popular and was consumed as a spread and in cooking.

Then subsequently, it was found that Tran’s fats were not healthy and was considered a worse risk factor for heart disease, cancer and so on. The body finds it difficult to differentiate between good fat and trans-fat, and when the latter creeps into the cells it replaces the good fat and disturbs the normal metabolic workings within the cell and even produced changes to the DNA and a risk factor for cancer.

So then came trans-fat manufactured from olive oil and other unsaturated oils, became popular for a while. Though olive oil is the basic raw product replacing vegetable oils, it goes through the same processes as trans-fats made from polyunsaturated vegetable oils.

Trans fat is formed during the process of hydrogenation, which turns liquid vegetable oils into a solid fat to look like butter. These are sold as margarine, shortenings and spreads quite popular till now.

Transfat contribute to heart disease, cancer, bone problems, infertility and so on. Basically, as mentioned earlier it interrupts the metabolic activities of each cell in the body and mutates DNA and damages the energy producing mitochondria.

Now butter has come back again, as it is proved beyond doubt that saturated fats are no risk factors to heart disease and stroke.

There are problems with butter, too

Those who are allergic to milk products may be allergic to butter too. Butter is very low in protein it still contains a small amount of casein a protein that can cause an allergy.

Lactose intolerance: People who cannot drink milk and milk products due to lack of an enzyme called lactase in your gut, may acquire intolerance to milk products. So, if you have lactose intolerance you may have adverse effects by using butter.

Butter high in calories: Butter is high in calories and those trying to lose weight may need to avoid. But still just a little spread on your toast makes no difference.

Baking agent: Butter is used as a leavening agent. Leavening means that it introduces air into baked goods to make them light and fluffy.

Butter gives a tasty flavour when added to the dough when baking bread and other confectioneries. Even flat bread like chappathi’s, paratha’s and goda’s are much tastier when butter is added.

So butter will now replace most of the highly processed inflammatory trans-fat in the production of baked foods and may improve the health of the people

Butter contains vitamins: Butter is rich in vitamin A, needed for a wide range of functions such as good vision and endocrine systems. Butter also contains vitamin D, E and K2 very essential for good health.

Minerals: There are many micronutrients in butter beneficial for your health. It has zinc, copper, chromium, manganese and selenium which is a powerful antioxidant.

Wulzen Factor: Butter has a hormone like substance called the Wulzen factor that prevents arthritis and joint stiffness, ensures that calcium is used by the bones. This factor is found in raw butter and cream and it is destroyed through pasteurization.

Conclusions: If you have no allergies or intolerances and weight problems- substituting butter for your spreads and include in baking is the way to go.

Some ref: to EcoWatch article: Health Nov 07.2016.