Nutritionist on why you shouldn’t cook your vegetables in ghee

From ‘fattening’ to ‘healthy heart‘, the reputation of butter has undergone a big change in recent times and the consensus is to make healthy fat part of the daily diet, albeit in moderation. However, becoming a popular ingredient could also mean a risk of consuming it incorrectly. As people look for new ways to add ghee to their regular and holiday meals, a nutritionist in her recent Instagram post talks about the right and wrong way to have the desi superfood. (Also read: Ayurveda Tips: A teaspoon of ghee on an empty stomach offers many health benefits)

Gut health expert and nutritionist Avantii Deshpaande took to Instagram to share with her followers why ghee shouldn’t be used to cook vegetables or as tadka in dal. Deshpaande says that oil is always better for cooking than ghee and she suggested alternative ways to include ghee in the daily diet.

“I see many people use ghee as tadka while preparing vegetables. As a nutritionist, I think this is not recommended. Ghee is a saturated fat, which means it has a lower smoke point compared to oils. Whenever I heat ghee while preparing your sabzis or even giving a tadka, its temperature rises beyond a point, then because the fatty acids are saturated, it will disintegrate and this will reduce the nutritional quality of the ghee,” he says in a video posted on Instagram.

Avantii says that the best way to add ghee to your diet is to apply it to your chapatis, put it on your rice or dals that you are consuming. It is also recommended to drink ghee first thing in the morning.

These are all the reasons why ghee should not be used for cooking vegetables:

– Ghee has primary saturated fatty acids and these have a low smoke point.

– Temperatures for seasoning mustard seeds and other spices exceed 180 degrees, often exceeding that point. If the temperature rises beyond this, the fatty acids will become denatured and this will lead to the generation of toxic substances that will increase oxidation in the body.

The nutritionist says that it is better to use cooking oil with higher smoke points, such as peanut oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, sesame seed oil, etc.

– Use room temperature ghee as a fat first thing in the morning or add it to dals, rice or chapatis.