Gaining weight by eating bread and butter will do your body no favors. Although butter is packed with calories, it's also high in a dietary fat associated with high blood cholesterol. You don't need to limit yourself to specific foods like bread and butter if you're underweight. Instead, focus on slowly increasing the calories you get from healthy food types.
Butter and Fat
Dietary fat has more calories than other nutrients, containing 9 calories per gram compared to the 4 per gram you get from carbohydrates and proteins. Thus, eating fatty foods may make sense in theory if you want to gain weight. However, the American Council on Exercise, or ACE, stresses the importance of avoiding saturated fat. This type of fat is usually solid in form and comes primarily from animal sources, with the exception of coconut oil, palm oil and palm kernel oil.
Butter contains 35 calories per teaspoon, all of which come from fat. This serving size gives you 2 g saturated fat, or 10 percent of your daily value, or DV, based on a 2,000-calorie diet. One tablespoon of salted butter gives you 100 calories and 7 g saturated fat, which makes up 35 percent of your DV. Fat might help you add to your weight but butter's saturated fat is directly linked to high blood cholesterol and an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
Whole Grains and Health
You receive around 70 calories from a slice of white bread and a slice of mixed grain bread. If you're trying to gain weight by increasing your carbohydrate count, your choice of bread may not seem to matter. However, whole grain breads, such as wheat bread and mixed grain bread, give you additional nutritional and health benefits over white varieties.
Whole grain breads are rich in dietary fiber, as well as essential nutrients and healthy unsaturated fat, says the Harvard School of Public Health. Whole grain foods may contribute to lower blood cholesterol and reduce your risk for other chronic diseases, but dietary fiber is particularly helpful to your overall digestive health as it helps keep bowel movements regular. White bread gives you 1 g dietary fiber per slice, while mixed grain bread gives you twice the amount of fiber, or 8 percent of your DV per slice.
Food Solution
Gain weight the smart way by choosing foods that are full of essential nutrients and low in unhealthy saturated and trans fats, such as fruits, vegetables and lean proteins. Choose reduced-fat dairy foods, such as yogurt, cheese and milk, and lean protein sources like skinless poultry, fish and beans, and eat more of them. A healthier choice for your bread is not butter, but peanut butter, which is rich in heart-healthy unsaturated fats. Other sources of healthy fats include nuts and seeds. You can even indulge your sweet tooth, but to avoid consuming empty calories, make nutritious selections like bran muffins, granola bars and fruit-based pies and cobblers.
Other Tips
Gain weight slowly and steadily. Start by adding a reasonable number of extra calories to your daily diet. ACE notes that if you add 500 calories to your meals every day, you'll gain an extra pound every week. A peanut butter sandwich made of two slices whole grain bread and 2 tbsp. peanut butter gives you 330 extra calories, and it's far healthier for you than bread and butter. Add a 6-oz. serving of reduced-fat cottage cheese with 2 percent milkfat for another 150 calories, and you've almost met your daily weight gain goal.
References
- American Council on Exercise: Putting on the Pounds
- Cleveland Clinic: Fat and Calories
- Mayo Clinic; Dietary Fats - Know Which Types to Choose; February 2011
- NutrientFacts.com: Salted Butter; White Bread; Mixed Grain Bread; Peanut Butter; Cottage Cheese
- Harvard School of Public Health: The Nutrition Source -- Health Gains from Whole Grains
- Mayo Clinic; Underweight? How to Add Pounds Healthfully; Katherine Zeratsky, R.D.; August 2009
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