Ghee – the super fat !

Column Lifestyle : Shaman Hegde

When someone is asked diet, the first thing comes to the mind is to stop eating ghee. Ghee is fattening, harmful for the heart, it  increases the cholesterol etc reasons pop up in the mind. But in reality, ghee is a super fat and can play major role in maintaining a healthy body, especially in lifestyle disorders.

 

PCOD, diabetes and obesity arise out of insulin resistance and one way of improving this is to eat meals that have a low glycemic index. The addition of ghee to our meals reduces the glycemic index of food. We just think of the calories and tend to stop eating the ghee without giving a damn about how that affects our blood sugar levels.

 

This is the reason why our ancestors used to add ghee to rice, modakas, pooran poli, roti etc. Ghee reduces the glycemic index of these meals. The addition of any fat to the food reduces its glycemic index and ghee is brilliant in this regard. So ghee regulates blood sugar and that reduces the risk of developing metabolic syndrome. This ensures that there is low steady rise in the blood sugar and better energy levels through the day.

 

Deep frying in ghee also comes from the same wisdom making of Shankar poli, gulab jamun, badshah, malpuri etc. These sweets are made up of fibreless maida. Hence a worry how to eat them without disturbing the health much? Simply deep frying them in the best available fatty acid – ghee, is the key. The slow steady climb in the blood sugar  makes it easy for the body to effectively assimilate the nutrients present in the food. Also as a cooking medium ghee has among the highest smoking points (measure of how quickly a fat oxidises or goes bad when heated). Which means, ghee can be used to fry for longer time.

 

Hence, ghee is a super fat !

Author Details


Srimukha

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *