Talk:Ghee

slang

Isn't Ghee slang for something in Ireland? Should there be a disambiguation for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.9.59.249 (talk) 11:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Moved the following from the article

How do you pronounce it?

With a hard G, GEE. porge 03:35, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

The Gh in Ghee is pronounced like ghost - with a similar emphasis. (I am a native Hindi speaker ;-))

I remembered this word, its spelling, pronunciation, and what it is (fascinating that ghee can survive w/o refrigeration for a time...) from the description of some Indian friends of my parents circa 1965 -- and, as noted directly above, they used the pronunciation "g-eeee" hard g. Perhaps a motivated editor might add the pronunciation. Bill Wvbailey (talk) 23:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Did they come from the southern region of India? Most southerners pronounce it like you said but this is incorrect. SDX2000 (talk) 12:57, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Is Ghee "free cholesterol"?

Hello,

Can someone help me to clear the following doubts?

Is Ghee contains "cholesterol"? Is it suitable for people who has high blood pressure and high cholesterol?

What other nutrietion and advantages by taking ghee? Or any disadvantages ? Will it bring any positive or negative consequences to our health ?

Thank you.

Of course it contains cholesterol. Cholesterol is a neccesary part of animal cellwalls. So simply all animal products contain cholesterol and no vegetable products contain cholesterol.

Ghee like any other fat is not cholesterol free. Also despite various sources and doctors saying that since ghee is 100% fat it is bad for the health, ghee is not the major cause of problems. This is only partially true, and that too when excessive intake is there (which applies to *any* food-stuff). Most Indian households use ghee, and in moderation it is not at all bad. In fact I would say that it is better than any processed fat/vegetable fat (which is hydrogenated) in that it doesn't contain any additives. If ghee were harmful, then we sould see a huge number of people dying of ghee-related problems, especially in north India (Punjab) where ghee is most consumed. Rohitbd 13:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

First of all I don't quite see what should be wrong with hydrogenated fat, as long as the fatty acids are not completely saturated.

Secondly, ghee is not necessarily free of additives. In Europe, for example, ghee is subsidized by the EU to get rid of the excess butter production. Then of course something has to be done to keep people from converting cheap, subsidized ghee back into more expensive butter, so phytosterol and stigmasterol are added. --RGrimmig 13:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

In EU & western countries, ghee may well contain additives. My comment about ghee being additive-free was about the way it is made and used in India. In Indian households ghee is seldom bought, it is mostly prepared at home so it doesn't contain any additives. Rohitbd 11:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Hydrogenated oils typically contain significant amounts of trans fat. Trans fats have been shown to be significantly more detrimental to cardiovascular health than even naturally occurring saturated cis fats. Flourdustedhazzn 15:24, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Rohitbd wrote: Ghee like any other fat is not cholesterol free. This statement is false. All plant-derived fats are cholesterol-free. —Ryanrs 23:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Ghee is not a plant-derived fat. Ghee is made from unprocessed butter which in turn is derived from milk. Also, plant-derived fats have cholesterol, though to a much lesser degree (see Cholesterol). Rohitbd 11:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe the challenged part of the statement was the implication that no fats are cholesterol free. Plant-derived fats are certainly not literally free of cholesterol, but the cholesterol content is nutritionally insignificant. Flourdustedhazzn 15:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

To Rohitbd: I'll have you know that 49% of all deaths in Punjab are due to cardio-vascular disease. You can wiki the article on Heart Attacks and you'll see for yourself. Indian deaths are mainly caused by cardio-vascular disease. You seem to be very proud of your ghee yet you are failing to see the negatives of it. I myself am an Indian and I wish to completely eliminate ghee from my diet. I'll also have you know that Indians experience heart attacks as early as the age of 30 or 40, which is far younger than most others in the world experience them. Please wiki the Heart Attack article and then let me know what you think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.144 (talk) 19:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Expand

"Ghee is frequently used for libations in Vedic ritual (see Yajurveda) and even finds a hymn dedicated to ghee. Ghee is also burned in the Hindu religious ceremony of Aarti and used in marriages, funerals and for bathing idols during worship."

It is also used in a sacrafice of 5 sacred substances (sugar, milk, yoghurt, honey, ghee).

"The use of ghee in Indian cooking is believed by doctors to have significant negative health consequences for Indians."

It is often used as a flavor-additive. Examples: it is brushed onto chappathis and added as flavor for some sambars.

Maybe we should add a picture? There are plenty online. The question is wether you want a picture of its bottled version or its pure (outside of the container) version.

Accuracy

"Not only does vegetable "ghee" contains high LDL, it also lacks ghee's ability to reduce serum cholesterol and it lacks the many health promoting benefits claimed for the real ghee."

LDL, which stands for "Low Density Lipoprotein" is only found in animals and therefore "vegetable 'ghee'" can not have any LDL, much less contain high levels of LDL. Otherwise a nice article. Just a note in passing and the first time that I've posted anything to Wiki.  :-) 71.113.235.19 00:45, 18 November 2006 (UTC)Ray

Ghee is 100 percent fat. Doctors believed that the widespread use of ghee in Indian cooking is detrimental to Indians' health.

The above statement does not quote any references (i.e., in what way is ghee more detrimental than other fats to Indian's health - preferably from some neutral medical source and not some company manufacturing cooking oils). Coming fom India, AFAIK ghee is used commonly (I eat it whenever I can) and I haven't seen health-risks to people eating ghee in moderation. Ghee is restricted to people who have obesity, cholesterol problems just as any other fat would be. Ghee is not any more damaging to health than other fats. Excessive intake of any fat along with a sedentary lifestyle will lead to problems - and that includes ghee. Also, ghee is additive free (especially the one made at home) so in some ways is better than other processed fats (like hydrogenated vegetable oil) for consumption. Rohitbd 14:01, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

This is 100% true. If you want, I can post a copy of my ghee container stating that it is 100% fat.

I agree that ghee is 100% fat and I do not dispute this. What I dispute is the claim that ghee is detrimental to health. I do not agree that ghee is a more serious cause of heart-problems than, say, vegetable fat (like Dalda). That said, in excess ghee is as bad as any other fat for health. PS: Please sign your posts with ~~~~ Rohitbd 11:15, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks at the breakdown of ghee(clarified butter) here.As you can see, Ghee contains about 75 percent cholesterol (which is very bad for health..ask your family doctor) and a very high content of 'Saturated' fat. Not all fat is bad, it is the 'saturated/polyunsaturated' fat which is bad for your health, because human digestive system can not break this fat easily to use it as a source of energy. Just because you(Rohitbd) eat it regulary doesnt mean that consuming ghee is any better or worse. Look at the facts and hope it is clear now that among all fats, Ghee is particularly bad because all it has is cholestoral & saturated fat. -- suds 12:10, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The article suds references claims that ghee contains 73 mg or miligrams of cholesterol per serving size of 28.4 grams. This is 0.257% cholesterol approximately not 75%. I would not dispute that ghee is mostly saturated fat but I would question the source of the information that you are referencing as the site is 'sponsored' by a company that sells diet products. This reference from the National Institute of Health (U.S.) seems to indicate that ghee is less a contributing factor to cardiac disease than vegetable oil though I would also point out that lack of exersize is noted as a factor. " Dr. Willett noted that coronary heart disease rates are increasing dramatically in developing countries, concomitant with increased intake of trans fatty acids (e.g., in vegetable ghee, inexpensive cooking oils) and reduced levels of physical activity, which can make individuals more susceptible to the effects of foods with a high glycemic load. " John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences (FIC) (1999) Minutes of the Advisory Board Forty-third Meeting Retrieved April 04, 2006 from www.fic.nih.gov/about/minadv19990928.html. A review of the original reports cited in the document may give a more complete understanding of whether butter-based ghee contributes to disease in areas where it is consumed. If 'some' Doctors are to be quoted then those Doctors should be named. Experior veritas ~Festus 23:09, 04 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Rohitbd that the general statement should be made more neutral, e.g. Some doctors believed that the widespread use of ghee in Indian cooking may be detrimental to Indians' health. I.e. don't take for granted that there is unanimous medical consensus regarding usage of fats. For a parallel example, look at current medical opinion about controversial low-carb nutritional approaches like Atkins: while mainstream dietists are critical at those theories, you do find scientifical studies supporting them (search PubMed for evidences). Maxx@82.181.100.181 08:13, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I edited it to sound less ridiculous. Also, somebody should add a "cooking" section. Daniel Leavitt 04:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Reference to "Diet & Nutrition, a holistic approach"

G'day, I just wikified the reference to this book, added by someone else. However, I'm concerned about its veracity. From a reader review on Amazon, the book apparently explains how "our chemistry and physics teachers were wrong when they told us that the elements in the periodic table can't be transformed into each other without a nuclear reactor operating on them. The enzymes in our bodies, and in the bodies of chickens, fish, etc., are quite capable of transforming one element into another, gently, without that nuclear explosion. Potassium, sodium, iron, copper, calcium, are being switched around inside the bodies of living creatures. Nitrogen is sometimes transformed into carbon monoxide. Amazing. Chickens are capable of making their own calcium, out of other elements, in order to make egg shells." This is obvious tosh, and one has to wonder about taking anything else in the book seriously. Should the reference stay? Webaware 21:35, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Nobody has come forward to support this cite, so I have removed it. Webaware ^talk 03:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Possibly Irrelevant

The American Heart Association recommends choosing dishes prepared without ghee.

Seems like it was added just to get the word "American" into an article.

In India ghee comes under the 'AGMARK' which is the equivalent of ISI in India.

What on Earth is ISI??

AGMARK seal (certificate) provided by AGMARK standard set up by the Directorate of Marketing and Inspection of the Government of India in 1937, ensures quality and purity of an agricultural (food) product Agmark. ISI (Indian Standards Institute) used to be the Indian version of ISO, now replaced with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). Karthikayans (talk) 00:57, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Ghee vs. Clarified butter

Is there any difference between Ghee and Clarified butter? Aren't both butter minus the milk solids?

Also, the article says that you can heat the oil to it's smoke point without harming it, but isn't that what the smoke point is for various fats? The smoke point is higher than that of just pure butter, but if you hit that higher point, it will break down. Atropos235 23:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that clarified butter may not be clarified as much as ghee. High quality ghee (e.g. not Australian commercial "ghee", also called "clarified butter") has little to no casein remaining, whereas clarified butter is reasonably clear but not necessarily as pure butter fat as ghee. Personal opinion: I imagine that production of ghee has a specific process, which when followed properly results in a particular variant of clarified butter with little to no milk proteins. Certainly, my wife (who is casein intolerant) copes with certain Indian brands of ghee but not Australian brands of "ghee/clarified butter". Webaware ^talk 14:55, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Is there any reason why these should be in two different articles? The clarified butter article only refers to ghee as a regional name - it treats all such variations as differences in naming and usage, not in their substance. Shouldn't ghee, and any special preparation to make it, be merged into the clarified butter article as a subset? Alvis (talk) 07:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

They should be merged, with clarified butter as the primary article. The level of clarification / regional variation is already noted. The problem comes from the fact that ghee is arguably more well known in contemporary circles! Widefox (talk) 09:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I too was inclined to the merge, but then I felt that the Clarified butter article would not be able to do justice to the cultural distinction of ghee. Ghee has sections on religious usage, ayurvedic usage and cuisine which are localized. Clarified butter should still concentrate on the physical properties. I guess the nutritional facts section should move out of Ghee to Clarified butter. Jay (talk) 10:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Cholesterol

What is the deal with the back and forth about cholesterol and ghee? It's not as if dietary cholesterol is significant (it isn't), so why bother about whether ghee has any or not? As a frequent consumer of ghee, and eggs, I'm often amused by tabloid coverage of dietary cholesterol and fats vs obesity and heart disease. I have doctor-shocking-good cholesterol levels, regardless of my eggs and ghee and dripping intake, so I fail to see the relevance of this issue in the article on ghee. Webaware ^talk 15:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I've also read similar claims about the limited effect of dietary cholesterol on blood cholesterol (from the likes of Harvard and the US NIH, not just alternative health resources). This isn't the forum for a full debate on the subject, but if you'd like to cite some scientific sources here perhaps we can remove cholesterol and health references.James A. Stewart 01:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

If you want to see some 'argy-bargy' about health issues, just go to the article "Saturated Fat". As pointed out above, dietary cholesterol is not really the issue, cholesterol is produced by the body and excess is excreted through the bile duct, factors such as fibre in the diet are more pertinent to serum cholesterol levels. If you read the section further up the page most of the discussion is caused by a semantic confusion between "fats" from animal sources and "oils" from vegetable sources. This is an unfortunate feature of the English Language, because we have fish OIL from animal sources (obviously) and trans FATS modified from vegetable sources. Germans would have no problem - for them fett is fett !!! --MichaelGG 07:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Ghee Vegetarian Restaurant

Do Indian vegetarian restaurants use ghee? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.102.164.70 (talk) 06:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

ghee is vegetarian. It is not vegan. Widefox (talk) 08:36, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

conversion of ghee to butter

butter is converted into ghee as given in wiki.Now read this At the top of SHIVAGABGA HILL,60 km away from Bangalore,India, stands a SHIVA[A HINDU GOD] TEMPLE.On the head of the idol of Shiva,which is called lingam,ghee is smeared and left for 4-5 minutes.You may be amazed to find that ghee has turned into butter.This butter is lab tested and proved. How can this happen? chemaster 18:40, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Ayurvedic medicine

The "Ayurvedic medicine" is very questionable. While I can certainly imagine Vedic sources praising the virtues of ghee, they certainly did do so by mentioning "bonding with lipid-soluble nutrients", cell membranes and cell nuclei, or the maintenance and repair of the mucus lining of the stomach.

If we are to reference claims about ghee in Vedic sources, it should be done without re-interpreting them using modern (pseudo)science. --Saforrest (talk) 02:36, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Image

The image used in this article looks like promoting a particular brand of Ghee which is against the wikipedia rules.—Ravichandrae (talk) 18:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I concur. I found certain images on the web without branding. ghee_picture Karthikayans (talk) 00:59, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Translation of سمنة بلدي as "local ghee" or "Egyptian ghee"?

I put (سمنة بلدي) into Google Translate Arabic > English, and it translated as "my obesity". I put "local ghee" in as English > Arabic (السمن البلدي) before translating it back into English to double-check and the two Arabic phrases look nothing alike!

Could somebody please check the translation? Many thanks.

(mikejamestaylor (talk) 10:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC))

Bull Ghee

• Ghee#Bull_Ghee

Is this for real? How can bull ever produce milk? The reference cited mentions "Bull ghee" once without providing much context[1], and I doubt its a reliable source. I removed this section but the edit was undone by an IP without any explanation. --Zvn (talk) 10:20, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Hey did you really read the references? (http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/ongole/index.htm) Under the title "Ongole Breed Tract", "Originally the breed tract comprises areas where there is no assured or commercial crops, leaving cattle raising as the only profitable proposition by selling bull ghee"..... Please stop deleting referenced posts for no reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.1.58.72 (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

There are no non-trivial reliable sources that discuss "bull ghee" or even prove its existence. The phrase "bull ghee" appears only once in that essay and the whole sentence doesn't provide much information about the purported "bull ghee". Its more likely that the writer of that essay made a mistake there, and typed "bull ghee" instead of "cow ghee". You are going to need to provide sources that support the assertion that genetically modified milk-producing bull exist. So far you have not done so.

Also, in your addition the sentence "Although not as common, bull ghee has recently gained popularity amongst the international community" is completely unsourced. Unless you can find non-trivial sources for this, it will be removed. --Zvn (talk) 15:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The article has been reinforced with several reliable sources to support the claim that bull ghee is in fact authentic. I have also removed the unreferenced sentence about its popularity.

That is untrue. You need to read up on WP:RS and WP:V. Blogspot is sure not a reliable source, and the link you added doesn't talk about lactating bull anyway. Please stop reinserting this made-up stuff into the article. --Zvn (talk) 04:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Nutrition

Since my edit was reverted, I'll ask this here and wait 24 hours before reinstating the edit. Why should the article not include records of followers of a particular diet recommending a food? This is relevant to the nutrition of the food, because endorsements by a healthy diet indicate something about the nutritional quality of a food. Mac520 (talk) 06:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)