There is no evidence that butter is healthier than ghee

On October 28 he appeared on Instagram page From a lifestyle blog Live consciously Netherlands video One of the founders, Mike First, says that ghee is “refined plastic.” Ghee is said to be harmful to health, while butter is a better alternative.

Leef Bewust corrects the comparison between margarine and plastic

In a written email response, Leef Bewust announced that it was withdrawing the plastic claim: “We investigated this internally and have concluded that this portion of the video is not true. It is often said that margarine is one molecule away from plastic, but water (is safe) ) And hydrogen peroxide (not safe to drink) as well. This confirms the above Fact check From DPA about some ghee rumors online.

Live consciously Deleted Video on Instagram, which is still running Facebook And cable It can be found.

Screenshot of mail Of living consciously.

Leef Bewust notes that it still stands by the claim that butter is healthier than margarine. “Margarine is anyway a dead product,” Mike First adds via email. Everything about it is fake!”

Responding to the recommendation of the Dutch Nutrition Center

For reference, First points to an online article titled “5 myths about ghee”. The article was written by Googlene Zwan, Director of the “aHealthylife” platform. He responds to that advice by Dutch Nutrition Centre It states that ghee is actually a healthy alternative to butter.

The two main points of contention are the difference between saturated fatty acids and vitamin D. In contrast to the nutrition center, Zwaan believes that the negative impact of saturated fatty acids on health is unproven. Furthermore, he writes, “ghee itself is also full of saturated fat.” With Vitamin D, adding it artificially to ghee would be a problem. Zwan’s conclusion: “I’d rather leave the ghee at the store and opt for butter.” But is butter healthier than ghee?

More saturated fatty acids in butter

He says “no”. Rosa LuytenAn employee at the Independent Expertise Center Flemish Institute for Healthy Living“We base our approach on the nutritional triangle, which includes butter Orange areaVegetable oils like ghee fall into the healthiest dark green zone, because they contain more unsaturated fatty acids. In an article On their site, orange food products are described as “foods of animal or plant origin that may have a negative impact on health.” This is mainly due to the presence of saturated fatty acids in butter.

Saturated fatty acids remain unhealthy

In this regard, the Flemish Institute for Healthy Living follows dietary recommendations a report For 2019, established by the Supreme Council of Health of Belgium. there “The diet of an increasing number of people is based on foods very rich in saturated fatty acids,” it states.

As advised by the World Health Organization a report This year, we recommend replacing the intake of saturated fatty acids with unsaturated fatty acids as much as possible. And in Another section In its report, the Supreme Council of Health also urges the Belgian population to consume more products rich in trans fatty acids.

The amount of saturated fatty acids in ghee offerings varies

But the assortment of margarines is very diverse. So he points out Imogen FaubertThe professor at the Faculty of Bioscience Engineering at KU Leuven also points out this Ghee contains saturated fatty acids To maintain a more stable structure. Although the quantities are usually less than butter.

“in general “You can say that the softer the ghee, the less saturated fatty acids it contains, and therefore the less harmful the product is to health,” says Faubert. Although she stresses that the type of saturated fatty acid is also important.

The difference in lifestyle is more decisive

Regarding the role of vitamin D, Zwan says, “Artificial nutrition is inferior to nature.” Butter is said to be naturally rich in Vitamin D, while it should be added to margarine. This is also not true, according to Faubert: “The (synthetic) additive is not necessarily worse. What matters fundamentally is the exact molecular structure of the substance.” In short: what matters is not the origin of the substance, but how it is chemically composed and the components it contains.

Although both Luyten and Foubert assert that there are too many factors to conclude that butter is truly healthier than margarine. Both take a holistic view of the issue. After all, overall diet and daily lifestyle are more important to our health than eating butter or ghee.

This inevitably has an impact on scientific research. For example, it is very difficult to use test subjects to determine the effects of margarine or butter. “It’s a methodological problem in food and health sciences,” Faubert emphasizes. This is also evident from a scientific article from 2020 entitled: “What makes nutrition research so difficult to conduct and interpret?”. This methodological difficulty means that different studies yield different results. Therefore, it remains very difficult to compare these results with each other.

Conclusion

In general, you can say that butter usually contains more saturated fatty acids than ghee and is therefore unhealthy. Although the amount of saturated fatty acids in the ghee group varies, their composition remains difficult to determine. But according to experts, overall diet is usually more important to our health than choosing a specific type of butter or ghee.