Butter’s triumphant return

It was about 30 years ago or so that we first banished butter from our kitchens, based on claims that it triggered heart disease and clogged arteries. We were told not to eat this animal-based fat. At the same time, we were offered a wide range of alternatives to butter, the most prominent of these, of course, being margarine. And you could see this trend reflected in a wide range of TV ads for various brands of margarine in Turkey, especially in the 1990s. From then on, we were bombarded by advertisements telling us to “eat margarine, not butter.” Ads exhorting us to spread margarine onto our bread the way we used to spread butter were all around us. Breakfast tables no longer included butter but had brands such as “Vita” and “Sana” sitting next to our jams and honey. It reached the point where villagers, who could -- if they wished -- be eating fresh butter churned from the milk of their own cows, started buying margarine from stores in town. And at the same time, the number of margarine-producing companies exploded. The much cheaper price of margarine (around one-tenth the price of butter) helped solidify this spread as the king of the kitchen, rather than butter.

It started to become common to see eight to 10 packages of margarine, but absolutely no butter, stored in people’s fridges. The saying that “rice without butter is not really rice” was forgotten, as margarine even replaced the butter in our rice. And the result of all this was that an entire generation grew up without knowing the slightest thing about butter culture, or even how butter is made.

It was only when people began to accept that obesity was becoming a real risk that experts decided to start examining more closely some of the foods we consume that lead to weight gain. And the result of extensive research began to show that the type of fat found in margarine cannot be broken down by the body. And suddenly, we started seeing the star chefs of various cooking programs on TV begin to talk again about the importance of using butter in cooking. “A real meal deserves its butter,” they said, while also noting the inherent dangers of margarine. And so, in the end, it turns out the reign of margarine was really quite short! The same margarine companies that had for years basically been pulling the wool over people’s eyes began to panic. After all, they had really mistreated this essential element of Turkish cuisine for years.

Remember those grandfathers and grandmothers of 80 and 90 years of age who would eat what seemed like spoonfuls of butter, or pour butter over their meat? They were so healthy and strong! If you were to ask these older generations the reasons for their good health, they would reply: “There is that fat we get from churned ayran. It can even bring the dead back to life!” And they really weren’t wrong: Have you ever seen someone who ate butter and also complained of obesity and high cholesterol?

So let’s accept that butter has been vilified. You can see the efforts under way to make up for this mistake on the shelves of our supermarkets, where dairy companies now boast many different kinds of butter. People now understand that butter is an indispensible item to keep in the fridge, and we no longer keep butter far from our mantı or our rice. And experts are working away, trying to close the chasm that widened between Turkish cuisine and butter over the years. Nutrition experts underscore the benefits of butter, trying to see it regain its lost glory.

Don’t fear butter

Canadian scientists were at the forefront in saving butter from accusations that it played a critical role in coronary and arterial diseases. And it has been this sort of research in general that has triggered a different view on butter in Turkey, too. Dr. Selçuk Can is a metabolism expert who talks about the high nutritional value in butter. He notes that each gram of butter contains nine calories, and that beyond this, there is really nothing potentially harmful about butter. The one thing he notes is that people should use butter carefully, consuming it in a balanced fashion the way you would any other food.

More praise for butter