Butter or cheese? Which of these would you choose as a bread spread? People have varied choices for this. Some people choose between butter and cheese purely on the basis of taste. While other believe that cheese is healthier than butter and vice versa. We know that both these dairy products are fattening. However, the human body requires some fats too!
Here are some points which will help you to make a better decision:
- How are they made: Cheese is made by coagulating or fermenting milk. Butter on the other hand is made by churning milk. Churning brings out all the fats from the milk. So butter is all fats!
- Proteins: Cheese is healthy because it retains the milk proteins even after changing form. That is why cheese is rich in muscle building proteins. However butter is mostly constituted of fats. It has very little amount of proteins.
- Calcium: Cheese is rich in calcium. In short all the effective nutrients of milk are retained in cheese. Butter also contains a certain amount of calcium but it is nowhere close to cheese.
- Energy: Butter is healthy because it gives you an instant burst of energy. Cheese too is an energy rich food but it will not give you that instant high like butter.
- Digestion: Cheese is difficult to digest as compared to butter. This is because cheese has a complex composition. This may turn off people with digestive problems. However it takes more energy to break down cheese in the stomach so cheese is a much better option for dieters.
- Satiety: As cheese takes more time to digest, it leaves you feeling full; butter can never fill your stomach again making a better choice for dieters.
- Lipid Profile: Cheese is healthier from the point of view of the heart. This is because the cholesterol and saturated fat content of cheese is much lesser as compared to butter. So if a heart patient has to choose between butter and cheese, he/she should definitely go for the latter.
- Calorie Breakdown: One tablespoon of butter has 102 calories. It contains more than 11 grams of fat. With each 1 gram of fat containing 9 calories, this product is almost entirely made of fat. 1 tablespoon of regular cream cheese has about 50 calories. It weighs 14.5 grams. It contains 5 grams of fat, bringing the total of calories from fat to 45.
Conclusion
Gram for gram, butter has more calories than cream cheese, but keep in mind the portion sizes that you take. A pat of butter is much lighter than a typical serving of cream cheese, so you will probably put significantly more cream cheese on your bread or bagel than butter, increasing the number of calories you consume. Which topping is best for you will depend on how much you use.
