Green Eggs & Dirt

Butter, oh butter, let me count the ways…Over the last year, I’ve come to have a love affair with butter. While its got a reputation for being an artery-clogging, cellulite-creating, saturated fat-hoarding devil food, butter is actually one of the best healthy fats you can eat. Julia Child, butter’s best known and biggest fan, lived to 91 eating abundant amounts of butter! Me thinks she was onto something. Personally, I think butter has become my favorite fat source, even above olive oil (which has the better reputation).

Feeling skeptical? Read on for more information about the immense benefits of butter.

So What’s So Great About Butter?

Butter is a natural fat with many, many health benefits. Here’s a list:

• Butter contains an equal and harmonious ratio of omega-3 fatty acids to omega-6 fatty acids.  Why is that important? Read more here.
• Butter is high in an easily absorbable form of Vitamin A that is necessary for thyroid and adrenal health.
• Butter also has abundant amounts of Vitamins E and K.  Vitamin E is important for maintaining and protecting body tissues like eyes, skin, liver and lungs. Vitamin K is important for blood clotting.
• Grass-fed Butter contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) which is a potent anti-cancer agent. CLA also builds muscles and immunities and fights weight gain (FYI – CLA isn’t found in butter from grain-fed cows).
• Vitamin D found in butter is essential to absorption of calcium.
• Raw butter prevents against arthritis and hardening of arteries (pasteurized butter may not have this benefit).
• Butter contains lauric acid which is key in treating fungal infections and candida.
• Butter contains lecithin, which is essential for metabolizing cholesterol.
• Cholesterol found in butterfat is essential to children’s brain and nervous system development and protects against heart disease.
• Butter contains anti-oxidants that protect against free radical damage.
• Saturated fats in butter have strong anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties.
• Butter protects against tooth decay.
• Butter is a great source of “Activator X“, which helps the body absorb minerals. For example, the minerals found in vegetables are better absorbed if the veggies are doused in butter.
• Butter has highly absorbable iodine.
• Butter may promote fertility in women.
• Butter is a source of quick energy and is not stored in our body’s fat tissues.
• Butter contains Arachidonic Acid (AA) which plays a role in brain function and is a vital component of cell membranes.
• Butter protects against gastrointestinal infections in the very young and elderly. Children who drink skim milk (milk without the butterfat) have diarrhea at 3 times the rate of kids who drink whole milk.

These are all the reasons I eat butter (well, in addition to the fact that it tastes good).  I eat my vegetables with butter, fry eggs in butter, sauté foods in butter, eat butter on whole wheat toast – you name it. Not only does my food taste amazingly good, but I feel good that I’m getting an all natural health benefit and a great source of fat.

What’s Wrong with Margarine/Vegetable Oil Spreads?

Margarine and vegetable oil spreads are highly processed foods that are chemically made from polyunsaturated vegetable oils. Vegetable oils are very damaging to the liver, which isn’t designed to process these designer fats. Additionally, most margarines have hydrogenated trans-fats in them, even if the label says they don’t. A product can advertise as being “trans-fat free” if it has under 0.5 grams of trans-fats per serving. But no amount of hydrogenated trans- fat is a good amount! Lastly, vegetable oils tend to have a very high ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids, which leads to inflammation in the body and increased levels of heart disease and cancer.

What Kind of Butter To Buy?

In the world of butter, just like in the world of all animal foods, it’s best to consume butter from grass-fed animals. Grain-fed cows are not healthy animals because they are forced to eat a diet that makes them sick and promotes disease. Therefore, the byproducts (like milk, meat, and butter) that come from factory farmed, grain-fed animals are often lacking the immense health benefits of those from their grass-eating counterparts, who are healthy and happy.

So when it comes to buying butter, consider the following.  Raw butter is best but is very pricey. Grass-fed butter is a great second runner-up and what I personally prioritize in my grocery selections. Cows eating grass are usually not eating pesticides, so if I’m buying grass-fed butter I don’t worry about organic. But if you can’t get grass-fed butter, aim for organic because pesticide residues from grains and growth hormones are stored in the fat of the animal and will get passed along to you via butter. If organic isn’t affordable or available to you, regular grocery store butter is still a better choice over margarine or butter spreads.

My favorite butter is Kerrygold butter. I buy it at Trader Joe’s and it currently costs about $2.50 for a 1 cup cube. It’s not the cheapest but it’s affordable enough for my budget. Kerrygold is made from grass-fed cows in Ireland. While I wince at the fact that it has to be exported over long distances to get to me, which increases environmental costs, it is some of the best butter I’ve had.

I also keep an eye out for Organic Valley’s “Pasture Butter”, which is sold only in the summertime and early fall. This butter is only made between May and September, when grass-munching cows are eating the most nutrient filled greens. The butter the cows produce during this time is also the most nutritious and vitamin rich. When Pasture Butter hits the shelves, I buy it in abundance and freeze blocks of it until I’m ready to use them.

I rarely buy raw butter. Raw butter does have an edge over pasteurized butter in terms of nutritional benefit, but it’s very expensive and not something I can afford to buy regularly. So I consider raw butter a treat and when I do buy it, I never cook with it, as the extreme heating eliminates the “raw” benefit.