568 FOOD VALUE OF BUTTER 



Table 97. (Continued). 

 Vegetable fats: 



Peanut oil 98.3 



Sesame oil 98.0 



Cocoanut oil 97.9 



Olive oil 97.8 



Cottonseed oil 97.8 



Cocoa butter 94.9 



On the basis of digestibility, however, butter is probably 

 superior to most other fats. Sherman 1 points out that the fats 

 generally retard the secretion of the gastric juice and tend to 

 make the food stay longer in the stomach, and that to the ex- 

 tent that the ease of digestion is inferred from the rapidity with 

 which a meal passes through the stomach to the intestines, the 

 eating of fat appears to retard the process, this being true to a 

 greater extent, the higher the melting point of the fat. Lang- 

 worthy and Holmes conclude that butterfat may be considered 

 more completely assimilated, than any other of the animal fats 

 which they considered in their investigation. This statement 

 refers to lard, beef fat and mutton fat. 



Caloric Value. The caloric calue of butter varies with its 

 composition. It largely depends on the per cent of fat contained in 

 butter. The curd content is fairly uniform and is usually assumed 

 to be about 1 per cent. 



The caloric value should be calculated only on the digestible 

 nutrients. The coefficients of digestion in butter average about 94.1 

 per cent for the curd, or protein, and 97 per cent for the fat. The 

 digestible nutrients in butter with varying percentages of fat, 

 then, are approximately as follows: 



1.x 94.1 

 Protein 



100 



-\ r\i-i 



= 77.6% 



100 



'* - .941% 



82.5% , 



82 " i 5 ^ 97 = 80.025% 



I* 94 - 1 941% 



100 ' 



85% -< 10 



S5 *? 7 = 82.45% 



1UU 

 'Sherman Food Products, 1916, P. 390. 



