Ban Butter for Greater Health?
One of Britain's leading heart surgeons, Shyam Kolvekar, has suggested that in order to save lives, butter should be banned.
Butter contains a large amount of saturated fat (54g per 100g), and saturated fat is considered responsible for a third of Britain's annual 200,000 premature deaths from heart disease.
Mr. Kolvekar said:
By banning butter and replacing it with a healthy spread the average daily sat-fat intake would be reduced by eight grams. This would save thousands of lives each year and help to protect them from cardiovascular disease - the UK's biggest killer.
Heart bypass operations are increasingly being performed on young adults, whereas in the past, it was normally only older patients who needed them. If butter was banned and replaced with a healthier spread, Brits would be eating an average 8g less of saturated fat each day - potentially saving thousands of lives.
It's unlikely, of course, that butter will be banned. Chefs and farmers have already spoken out against Mr. Kolvekar, insisting that eaten in moderation, butter is not dangerous.
Sources:
Ban butter to save thousands of lives says heart surgeon - Daily Mail
Butter ban 'would save lives' - The Press Association
45 Comments
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Created / Updated: February 11, 2010
Genius. I remember how when my parents were young, they warned us all that butter was awful and we should eat margarine instead. And then, this is the good part, when I was young - they found out that margarine is actually much, much worse for you than butter! Good times.
Seriously, saturated fat is not that bad for you. Trans fats, yeah, they found that even very small amounts have an adverse effect on heath... but reasonable consumption of saturated fats? Give me a break. The guy just wants to be in headlines.
ReplyA lot of margarines are much better for you than butter but you have to read labels carefully. The part about margarine being one molecule away from being plastic was put out by the dairy farmers & they did their dirty work for the margarine producers.
ReplyI eat butter. Butter is healthy, in moderate quantities. Organic is even better. And as Heather said, stay away from margarine.
It has not been proven that saturated fat is bad. Read this: http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/b/2010/01/17/time-to-stop-being-afraid-of-saturated-fat.htm
ReplyI'd like to add that there has been a recent review of all the observational studies that have evaluated the link between saturated fats and CHD and CVD. (Conducted by a prominent lipid researcher) The conclusion:
"A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD."
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.27725v1
It's really a ridiculous idea, domonizing saturated fats. Our great-grandparents thrived on sat fats and when things like crisco first came out, they wouldn't touch the stuff, opting for butter instead because crisco was not natural. The whole "animal fats will kill you mantra" came out as a marketing tactic from the makers of crisco and vegetable oils so they could sell their product.
ReplyThanks for signposting to the study, that's helpful.
ReplyYes, thanks for the link!
ReplyMy grandparents also had a diet from hell from a contemporary viewpoint. Fatty meat(chuck steak was a treat), potatoes, milk, etc. But no fast food, sodas or salty snacks. They dealt with fats and salts, thats about all, and not all of the additives in todays industrial foodstuffs. You can't ban butter but why not tax butter and other fatty things like you tax alcohol and tobacco? Or just sock the industrial food firms that stuff the consumer with preservatives, salt, high fructose corn syrup, etc.
ReplyThe guy just wants to be in headlines !!
ReplyThe heart surgeon should have suggested banning processed junk foods laden with trans fats, not a whole food such as butter.
ReplyIt's so silly that a fairly natural substance is demonized in such a way. I'd much rather put butter in my system than those almost butter options with all the quesitonable ingredients.
There has also been a lot research recently about saturated fats and reviews of past research on saturated fats. The researchers are finding there is NOT a higher incidence of heart disease of stroke with increased consumption. Some even indicate that there are protective qualities to saturated fat consumption.
Very recently a big wig in the lipid research world (Dr. Ronald Krauss) reviewed all the saturated fat research and concluded that saturated fat is not causitive of heart disease.
There's a brief write up of this over at the Whole Health Source and it links to the study this guy released.
Also, Men's Health has an article talking about saturated fat. The article is called Your Unstoppable Heart. Check it out.
Reply"One of Britain's leading heart surgeons, Shyam Kolvekar, has suggested that in order to save lives, butter should be banned"
- I think this moron should be banned from practicing medicine.
ReplyI agree.
ReplyI do wonder if he wasn't expecting his comments to be taken all that seriously -- I certainly don't think that there's any chance whatsoever that butter would be banned, and he must know that!
ReplyWe've been using butter for hundreds and hundreds of years with no problems whatsoever. It makes food taste awesome and you can't really bake without it, so what would be the point of banning it? What does this heart surgeon suppose that we use instead; margarine? Yeah, because transfats are SO much better for your heart than good ol' butter.
Since he's so opposed to saturated fats, maybe he'll propose banning lard in favor of using artificially hydrogenated shortening. Which I would greatly protest because I NEED lard to make decent piecrust.
ReplyI agree. I wonder why they are determined to attack butter but not something like high fructose corn syrup, which is NOT natural and in just about everything these days? In a healthy diet, I think oils/fats do have a place, as long as they are used appropriately. Are there better fat sources to choose from? Sure. But cooking with butter occasionally could be incorporated into a healthy routine as long as it is not abused.
ReplyWell said, Spectra and Kelly! I can't imagine making my favourite chocolate chip cookies with anything other than butter.
(I do have a great low-calorie muffin recipe which uses olive oil, though.)
ReplyButter is not the only culprit! We would have to ban half of what a lot of people eat!
Spectra, loved your comment!
ReplyMargarine is actually a bigger culprit than butter due to the manufacturing process. At least butter is half natural, marg has been processed into a horribly toxic fat!
ReplyButter is half natural? Please explain--I've always considered it to be 100% natural. I've made my own butter before and I'm pretty sure it's an all-natural product.
Reply"saturated fat is considered responsible for a third of Britain's annual 200,000 premature deaths from heart disease"
ridiculous!
ridiculous!
and one more time ridiculous!
humans are made of saturated fat and have been eating saturated fat since their origin
Replyit is just natural for humans to eat saturated fat from natural sources, what is unnatural is eating sugar laden cookies and drinking artificially produced soda poison
Very clever way to get people talking Ali! Entertaining read, how the world has taken a great big 180! Still a long long way to go.
ReplyHello All
I've had an email exchange with the anti-sat fat heart surgeon Mr Kolvekar. Seems he has not science to support his stance. You can read about it here:
http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/2010/01/21/heart-surgeon-waging-war-on-saturated-fat-seems-seriously-short-on-science-to-support-his-claims/
ReplyFrankly, give me butter any day. My grandfather ate it every day and lived to 101. It's not natural fats that are bad for you, it's unnatural ones. Some of you may have seen this e.mail I received the other day:
Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.
It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavourings..
DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?
Read on to the end...gets very interesting!
Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and
only because they are added!
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of other foods.
Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .
And now, for Margarine..
Very High in Trans fatty acids.
Triples risk of coronary heart disease .
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..
Lowers quality of breast milk.
Decreases immune response..
Decreases insulin response.
And here's the most disturbing fact..... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!
Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC... and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT
These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).
You can try this yourself:
Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:
* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?
ReplyWhat an utter load of crap. Meanwhile, twinkies remain on the shelves...
ReplyGo read the Diet Delusion (an academic review of just about all nutrition studies over the last 100 years), then www.marksdailyapple.com you will never look at food and 'conventional' diet guidelines in the same way again. I promise you. Our latest headline here in the UK today is all about surgery to beat obesity, yee Gods, what next. Go Primal.
K
ReplyAt least, butter is a natural product. Neither alternative used for it is.
ReplyAll around the world, people eat butter yet it is only the "developed" world that they are "dieing" from doing so. Banning butter would only force people to find an alternative to way to continue their unhealthy lifestyles.
Why not educate?! (I wouldn't mind seeing EV Coconut Oil used more though- it tastes soooo good.)
Kelda- thank you for the links.
Replythaaaaaaaaanxxxxxxxx
ReplyHe he, I have just started to eat butter again.
I was getting appalled at all of the artificial ingredients in the "healthy" low-fat, non hydrogenated margarines with flavor enhancements I decided to go back to foods that I recognize the ingredients.
I figure if I eat no more than a pat of butter (everything in moderation) I'll be just fine. My worry is unknown effects of the other ingredients such as MSG (often hidden in foods) in its various forms.
Anyway I do not think most minimally processed foods are unhealthy so long as your diet is in balance for the whole day.
Reply...yeah, and I'm sure that the fact that Britons smoke like coal fires have NOTHING to do with the fact that they're an unhealthy lot.
ReplyMeta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease
Patty W Siri-Tarino, Qi Sun, Frank B Hu, and Ronald M Krauss
In case anyone isn’t aware the full text of the Krauss meta analysis is online here thanks to Nutrition & Metabolism Society
Replythe truth of the matter is that butter is good for you and margarine is not good for you.
The doctor mentioned wants butter banned so that people look for alternatives that will negatively affect their health and thus will provide a job for the doctor.
good health= no job for doctor :(
ReplyComing from a family of dairy farmers and my love of cooking, I vote for moderation. To quote Julia Child, "If butter in your recipe scares you, just substitute cream."
ReplyI grew up with my old schol grandparents, and we ate a lot of buter. Since then I have looked for a butter substitute that tastes good!!
ReplyAs the spouse of a diabetic, we are learning all the time that the closer it is to natural, the healthier it is. I do not want to attempt to discredit the Doctor, but I do wonder how his thought agrees with this?
ReplyAs the spouse of a diabetic, we are learning all the time that the closer it is to natural, the healthier it is. I do not want to attempt to discredit the Doctor, but I do wonder how his thought agrees with this?
ReplyFor a good many years,I have omitted butter from my
Replybread or toast,because those items are perfectly fine
without!
I think butter in moderation is ok. Isn't that what we are learning in our diets is moderation and control.
Replythanks alot
Reply