EAT MORE BUTTER

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume VL, Issue 3149, 19 March 1934, Page 6

EAT MORE BUTTER

FOR BETTER HEALTH Views of Auckland Dietition Advantages Over Margarine “ We should endeavour to show the consumer that there is a vast difference between the food value of butter and the cheap substitute margarine.” This is one point stressed by Mr. Robert J. Terry, of Auckland, a wellknown authority on diet and health, in a letter to this paper. Mr. Terry writes as follows: — When butterfat was about 2s 6d per pound I pointed out that butter must become cheap when the world again become normal. Needless to say, I was not listened to, so I again make another attempt. Why Butter is Good Food Butter is low in price because in the present butter consuming market the supply is greater than the demand, therefore it is only commonsense to say that we are wasting money in any attempt to raise prices unless we can alter the conditions. There are two common sense methods for us to work on. Amalgamate with all the butter producing countries, in pointing out to the butter consuming public the value of butter as an article of diet and the folly of buying a cheap substitute —margarine. It is not sufficient to tell your public to eat more butter and no margarine if you do not give them sound reasons why they should not eat the cheap substitute. Secondly, and this can be made to apply chiefly to New Zealand, that our butter taken all the year round is superior to any other, but again we have to give reasons for this, and we can. Grass-fed Cows The position of the butter industry is so serious that we must face facts and be honest with ou'rselves. Therefore it will be as well to admit that in all probability Danish and possibly some other butters, for five months in the year, are quite equal to ours, possibly superior. What we want to impress upon butter consuming countries is the fact that the butter or milk from a cow eating grass all the year round, and is naturally eating that grass during many hours of sunlight, is of far more feeding value and has greater health-giving qualities than butter, milk, etc., from cows in sheds or barns for six or seven months in the year. The knowledge is comparatively recent, therefore there is some excuse for it not being made moie prominent. Vitamins in Butter Prior to about, a year before the war butter was judged solely on its flavour and keeping qualities. About that time research workers were finding that there must be some mysterious substance in the fab contained in butter; also the fat in the yolk of an egg. To be brief, this minute substance may be described as one of the life principles of food and we know it to-day as vitamins. Thirty years ago I and some others knew it as “bios.” Then the war years came and experiments ceased for a while. We should endeavour to show the consumer that there is a vast difference between butter and the cheap substitute—margarine. First, what do they consist of? Cream is churned; this causes the fat globules in the cream to run together, while the fluid part containing some milk sugar and casein remains in the substance known as buttermilk. When the cream is cleanly ripened, certain organisms grow in the cream which give the aroma and flavour to the butter. Effect of Pasteurisation When cream is pasteurised, especially overpasteurised, it is devoid of flavour. You have a neutral fat. Its keeping qualities are enhanced. Too much attention has been paid to this in the past. The aim has evidently been keeping qualities and the killing of objec- j tionabie aroma due to foods eaten by the cows. As a great deal more attention is paid to the feeding of cows, clean milking and handling of cream, excessive pasteurisation is not necessary in Denmark, hence my state-

ment, they, in all probability, have butter superior to ours for five months in the year—the grass period. If traces of casein are left in the butter, decomposition of same takes place and the butter becomes more or less rancid. If there is much water in the butter it facilitates the travel of the decomposing casein.

Boiled Butter in India

There is a simple illustration that butter becoming rancid is due to minute particles of casein left in the butter. In India and some other countries where butter is boiled, until the water is driven off, and then strained so that the casein is removed, the melted butter will keep indefinitely bottled. Such butter is known as ghee, and it might be well worth our while to investigate the markets of those countries consuming ghee, as a possible outlet for our surplus butter. Butter contains four acids known as fatty acids, which are soluble in water. Even the fats are more than one. The chief of them is olein. Butter is Easily Digested Now the point which wants to be stressed,./ why the butter consuming public should not buy the . cheap substitute —margarine—is that the butter fat is the most easily digested and absorbed of any fats, either animal or vegetable. Butterfat has a low melting point. The fat of the human body also has a low melting point and it may be that because butterfat closely resembles human in its proportion of the fats, that that is the reason for its great human food value. A person at manual labour could in most cases with advantage increase the amount of butter eaten. In many cases of consumption and sugar diabetes a quarter of a pound of butter daily may be consumed with advantage. Further, it should be pointed out to the housewife that butter may be said to be completely absorbed. Only the merest traces, under a quarter of one per cent, are found in the body wastes, whereas 10 per cent, of mutton and other fats may be recovered.

Good butterfat often gives better results than cod liver oil; is of much greater value and more easily digested than olive oil, which we have to import. It has 'been found that butterfat influences growth, The cheap substitute does not, only supplies heat or calories'.

What is Margarine ?

Now what is the cheap substitute made of? Originally, margarine, the cheap substitute for butter, was simply beef fat with a mixture of milk, churned together into an emulsion. Then some of the more thinking housewives got into the way of finding that they could test whether it was genuine or not, or simply the cheap substitute, by melting small portions of each. So commercial man got to work to beat Mother Nature. No, I am Wrong there—to beat his fellowman. To-day various fats are meltbd, then allowed to cool slowly, with the result that the stearin solidifies first. This is removed and the palmitin and olein which remain are churned up with some milk in an endeavour to copy butter flavour. The emulsion is then tinted and a preservative added and you have the cheap substitute which is helping to bankrupt thousands of dairyfarmers.

It is not the business of the manufacturer of margarine to point out to the consuming public that it is lacking in an essential for health and growth of the young, which that wonderful chemist, Mother Nature, has placed in butterfat. His business is to make money. A percentage of margarine is sold as such and the law stipulates it shall be labelled as margarine, but the law is not always carried out. Further, a very large amount of margarine is blended with a proportion of butter, and the risk taken of selling it as butter. It is the business and should be the policy of the dairyfarmer, the merchant, etc., of butter and milk products to point out to the consuming public that they are selling’ a genuine article, not a cheap substitute. The consumption of the cheap substitute, margarine, is far greater than we here in New Zealand realise. From data I have received from j America, it is computed that mar- | garine equals one-fifth or more of I the butter consumed. I

In years gone by, and it is prob- i ably the same to-day, the Danish i dairyfarmers exported their butter j and imported margarine for their I consumption. Denmark was not j alone in this respect. i

I could continue to give data in this direction, but I do not wish to tire readers.