p. 429 | Health and Temperance by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jul 15, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 27.

Health and Temperance.

By Editor

Dr. Graham on the Use of Butter.

THERE is much questioning of late in regard to the use of butter. This may be increased by the knowledge of the fact that imitations of butter are everywhere in the market, and it is impossible to tell whether one is eating butter or something else called butter, when he sits at the table in a hotel, boarding-house, or restaurant. In our judgment the genuine is bad enough, without any adulteration or imitation. We have seen butter made and put upon the market that could not be told from the very best article, which we would not taste for any consideration. In one sense it was good butter; it was made from good, rich cream, and therefore looked well, but there was filthiness in all its surroundings and in its manufacture. We are always safe from imposition in this matter, for we entirely abstain from everything bearing the name of butter. The following remarks of Dr. Sylvester Graham are worthy of candid consideration:—

“Concerning the use of butter as an article of diet, it is somewhat remarkable that with all the diversities of opinions in regard to the food of man, nearly all who have written or spoken on the subject of human aliment with reference to health, have been entirely agreed in considering this favorite article as decidedly objectionable; and some have spoken of it in the severest terms of condemnation. Dr. Beaumont’s experiments and observations fully prove that when butter is taken into the stomach, with other substances, it becomes a fluid oil and floats upon the top of the chymous mass, retaining its oily character and appearance till all the other contents of the gastric cavity are nearly or entirely chymified and emptied into the duodenum; and it, like all other animal fat, is digested only by being first acted upon by a portion of bile and converted into a kind of saponaceous substance, and then it receives the action of the proper solvent fluid of the stomach. The point is therefore forever established beyond all controversy that butter is better avoided than eaten by mankind.”—Temperance Reformer.