Freshly churned this morning, a dollop of this white makkhan just made its way to the top of my morning paratha. Feeling full with just one of it; instead of my usual two parathas, I thought to myself that the good fatty acids in butter are at work here, stabilising my blood sugar. When our blood sugar is stable, rather than jumping from super high to super low, we do not overeat or experience sugar cravings. In short, ek butter, I mean, ek teer se do nishane– Obesity and Diabetes or ‘Diabesity’
‘Diabesity’ is one of the two health epidemics that has caught the attention of food experts across the world; other being ‘Hidden hunger’, which essentially is a deficiency of micronutrients like Vit D. The ‘rich’ in developing countries like ours are busy looking down on Vit D carriers like makkhan and are replacing it with other vitamin enriched oils or ‘fat free’ alternatives. As a result, they are not really hungry or undernourished in the physical sense but have all the signs of hunger & malnourishment, i.e., struggling to sleep at night, getting up tired in the morning, getting acidic, constipated, irritable and having low energy that strikes at the core of their health and vitality.
The “live culture” in my homemade makkhan was already making me feel cheerful and my gut light and as I reached my office, I could see my intern thanking her stars not to see her usual grumpy boss today. I opened my mailbox to answer a client’s concern on his rising cholesterol levels. His doc, he said, had asked him to go completely fat free; no butter, no ghee. “Usual, routine instructions” I thought. If only the doctors had known that the lecithin in butter helps in proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol in body, we would not have been misinformed and the world would have been a thinner place. Moving away from my own thoughts, I wrote to my client asking him to have some white makkhan with his lunch. No, he will not protest. The Arachidonic acid (AA) in butter works towards optimal brain health and will make sure my client overcomes unreasonable food fear and takes smarter decision about his health 🙂
What am I doing now? Reaching out for my lunch dabba to savour some bhakri butter and chutney. Aapne khaya kya?
Confused by the misinformation about potential health problems with traditional Indian foods? Get in touch with well-known Mumbai dietitian and nutritionist, Munmun Ganeriwal, a strong advocate of the holistic, wellness benefits of fresh, local, and traditional Indian foods.
References & other related articles-
Where Dietary-Fat Guidelines Went Wrong- TIME Health
Butter And Cheese Not Bad For Heart Health: Study- Huffington post
Sweden Becomes First Western Nation to Reject Low-fat Diet Dogma – Health Impact News