So, how much butter is good for your health? Is butter really better than olive oil? Here, experts studied the proportion and intake of butter in a healthy diet.
Rethinking about butter
In the 1920s and 1930s, a large number of nutritional studies on women and children touted butter as a healthy food beneficial to infants and children.
Since the 1960s, the American Heart Association has suggested reducing the intake of saturated fat in the diet, because saturated fat can lead to heart disease. Then at 1980, USDA issued the first edition of dietary guidelines, which also suggested reducing the intake of saturated fat, total fat and cholesterol.
In the book Fat Man's Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese are Healthy Diet, Nina Teicholz mentioned: "This concept has been the core of China's nutrition policy for more than half a century. The research results were overturned, although there is better evidence than this that saturated fat can cause heart disease. "
20 10 A meta-analysis report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition said that the relationship between unsaturated fat diet and coronary heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease was found.
In March this year, another meta-analysis in Annals of Internal Medicine reached the same conclusion: there is not enough evidence to support the guideline that limiting saturated fat can prevent heart disease. In addition, the author also points out that increasing the intake of polyunsaturated fats ω 3 and ω-6 fatty acids will not bring any help.
However, Libby Mills said that the fat in butter helps us to absorb and utilize the vitamins in our diet. She is a registered dietitian in the United States and a spokesperson for the College of Nutrition and Nutrition. Therefore, adding a small piece of butter to broccoli can help the absorption of vitamins and is a healthy dietary choice. Butter is rich in copper, which is an indispensable micronutrient for human health. It has an important influence on the development and function of blood, central nervous system and immune system, hair, skin and bone tissue, brain, liver and heart.
Butter also contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), so studies have shown that proper consumption of butter can reduce the risk of colon cancer and breast cancer in women. However, conjugated linoleic acid also affects cholesterol. It will lower low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) and may also lower high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL).
Butter contains vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin D and vitamin K, which are fat-soluble vitamins stored in the body. However, if you want to use butter as a source of these vitamins, you must eat a lot of butter. The nutrition of butter is the first in dairy products, and its main component is fat, which is much higher than cream, and its content is about 90%. The rest is mainly water and cholesterol, but also contains a variety of fat-soluble vitamins, basically excluding protein.
More importantly, the effect of saturated fat on cholesterol is well known. "Although saturated fat can slightly increase high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), it can also increase low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) to a greater extent," Mills said.
Butter VS carbohydrates
In the book Eat Bacon, Don't Jog: Become Strong. Get thinner. Not nonsense, Grant Peterson believes that butter is related to high cholesterol, obesity, arterial obstruction and atherosclerosis, which is true. But these health problems are actually caused by eating too many carbohydrates, which leads to the increase of blood sugar level and insulin.
Peterson also said: "Because butter doesn't seem to be rich in nutrition, most health problems are attributed to butter. In fact, in most cases, butter is just a carbohydrate. "
We have been leading consumers to believe that saturated fat is not directly related to arterial embolism. On the contrary, high levels of insulin and triglyceride (a kind of fat) in the liver are the key factors leading to arterial embolism.
When insulin circulates at high speed in the blood, you can't consume the fat in your body, so the heat is stored in the fat cells of triglycerides. Triglycerides then enter the artery, causing the artery to clog. Blood tests can detect triglyceride levels and insulin levels.
Peterson said: "Butter is a healthy fat, which may sound crazy, because in the past few decades, we have been told that butter is an unhealthy fat. However, unsaturated fat is unhealthy because it lowers the insulin level in your blood. "
How much butter is the best to eat?
Olive oil, avocado oil, nuts, monounsaturated sunflower oil in plant seeds and polyunsaturated fat in fish oil are all considered as heart-healthy fats and should be included in our eating habits. In fact, a recent study by Harvard School of Public Health found that if the source of polyunsaturated fat in the diet is replaced by 5% saturated fat, the risk of heart disease can be reduced by 9%.
Nutrition experts believe that, just like eating all delicious foods, eating butter requires moderation. However, when eating butter, it should be noted that pregnant women, obese people and diabetics should not eat it, and men should not eat more, because excessive intake may lead to prostatic hypertrophy.