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Are you worried about your health? Contrary to popular belief, completely eliminating butter from your diet may be BAD for your health! Learn all the benefits of eating butter here!
The origins of butter go back thousands of years to when our ancestors first started domesticating animals. In fact, the first written reference to butter was found on a 4500- year old limestone tablet illustrating how butter was made.1
In India, ghee (clarified butter) has been used as a staple food, and as a symbol of purity, worthy of offering to the gods in religious ceremonies for more than 3000 years.2
The Bible has references to butter as the product of milk from the cow, and of Abraham setting butter and milk from a calf before three angels who appeared to him on the plains of Mamre.3
For millennia, people around the globe have prized butter for its health benefits.
So how did butter become a villain in the quest for good health?
At the turn of our century, heart disease in America was rare. By 1960, it was our number one killer. Yet during the same time period, butter consumption had decreased - from eighteen pounds per person per year, to four.4
A researcher named Ancel Keys was the first to propose that saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet were to blame for coronary heart disease (CAD).
Numerous subsequent studies costing hundreds of millions of dollars, have failed to conclusively back up this claim.5
Yet the notion that a healthy diet is one with minimal fat, particularly saturated fat, has persisted. While Americans drastically reduced their intake of natural animal fats like butter and meat, the processed food industry, particularly the low-fat food industry, proliferated.
When the baby boomers were children, concerned mothers began to replace butter with margarine. The margarine manufacturers told them it was the healthier alternative and mothers believed them. In those days no one asked, "where is the science to prove it? I want to know before I give this man-made, plastized stuff to my children. After all we humans have been eating butter for thousands of years?".
As a result, since the early 1970's, Americans' average saturated fat intake has dropped considerably, while rates of obesity, diabetes, and consequently, heart disease, have surged.
Reducing healthy sources of dietary fat has contributed to a serious decline in our well-being, and those of us that speak out against the anti-fat establishment are still largely ignored .
Is Margarine Better than Butter?
No! This is a tragic myth. Butter is a completely natural food essential to your health - especially when you eat organic. Also, please make the extra effort to obtain high-quality organic, raw butter.
Margarines, on the other hand, are a processed food, created chemically from refined polyunsaturated oils. The process used to make these normally liquid oils into spread-able form is called hydrogenation.
Margarine and similar hydrogenated or processed polyunsaturated oils are potentially more detrimental to your health than any saturated fat.7For more information on why you should avoid all processed oils read Why the Processing of Consumable Oils Has Devastated America's Health.
Include Real Butter as part of Your Body Ecology Lifestyle
As many of you already know, I am a strong proponent of including a variety of healthy oils and fats into your diet. Together they work as a team to supply your body with essential fatty acids for longevity, hormone balance, heart health, sharp vision, glowing moist skin and energy. The wonderful variety of oils and fats certainly includes organic, preferably raw butter. Cultured raw butter is even better.
And why would I be so insistent that you eat butter? Take a look at the long list of the benefits you receive when you include it in your diet:8
- Butter is rich in the most easily absorbable form of Vitamin A necessary for thyroid and adrenal health.
- Contains lauric acid, important in treating fungal infections and candida.
- Contains lecithin, essential for cholesterol metabolism.
- Contains anti-oxidants that protect against free radical damage.
- Has anti-oxidants that protect against weakening arteries.
- Is a great source of Vitamins E and K.
- Is a very rich source of the vital mineral selenium.
- Saturated fats in butter have strong anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties.
- Butter contains conjugated linoleic acid, which is a potent anti-cancer agent, muscle builder, and immunity booster
- Vitamin D found in butter is essential to absorption of calcium.
- Protects against tooth decay.
- Is your only source of an anti-stiffness factor, which protects against calcification of the joints.
- Anti-stiffness factor in butter also prevents hardening of the arteries, cataracts, and calcification of the pineal gland.
- Is a source of Activator X, which helps your body absorb minerals.
- Is a source of iodine in highly absorbable form.
- May promote fertility in women.9
- Is a source of quick energy, and is not stored in our bodies adipose tissue.
- Cholesterol found in butterfat is essential to children's brain and nervous system development.
- Contains Arachidonic Acid (AA) which plays a role in brain function and is a vital component of cell membranes.
- Protects against gastrointestinal infections in the very young or the elderly.
Raw, Organic Butter is the Best
Believe me this is only a partial list. If a woman is pregnant, hopes to become pregnant or is nursing her baby, I think it should even become a law for her to eat butter for her baby's developing brain, bones and teeth.
The best butter you can eat is raw, organic butter because pasteurization destroys nutrients. Unfortunately, the sale of raw butter is prohibited in most of our 50 states.
Are you finding it difficult to get organic, raw butter? Don't worry! Making your own delicious cultured butter with Body Ecology Culture Starter is an easy way to get on the right track towards health
You can, however, make your own healthy butter, and it is easier than you think. Look into our Body Ecology Culture Starter, which you simply add to organic cream. After letting this mixture sit at room temperature for 24 hours, chill it, beat it with a whisk, and voila! You'll have healthy, probiotic butter that is delicious!
Cultured butter is full of health sustaining good bacteria like lactobacillus planterum, and lactococcus lactis. These microflora are essential for a healthy inner ecosystem.
Sources of Healthy Butter
If you don't want to culture your own butter, I recommend butter from grass-fed animals only. A good source is U.S. Wellness Meats.
I also recommend Activator X and Vitamin rich butter oil, made by Green Pastures.
Heart Healthy-the Body Ecology Way
Completely eliminating butter and other healthy animal source fats is NOT the Body Ecology way. It is not how our ancestors thrived, and not what nature intended.
How much should you eat each day? Like sea salt, your own body will tell you how much to eat. If you crave it, eat it, your body needs it. If the quality is excellent you can feel confident it will be good for you and you'll soon see the benefits yourself. If you are following the Body Ecology Food Combining Principle and eating as we recommend (adding at least one source of fermented food or drink to your diet) you will see your body reach its idea weight. The raw butter will help you develop beautiful muscles.
The Body Ecology program is gaining recognition for being a premier way of healing candida and other immune dysfunctions. And what's more, it's a heart-healthy, super-slimming, anti-aging way of life, which is crucial to your health as a whole.
Sources:
- History of Butter
http://www.dairygoodness.ca/en/consumers/products/butter/history-of-butter.htm - "Butter" from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butter#Worldwide - Princely Packets of Golden Health
http://webexhibits.org/butter/ref/MiltonEParker.pdf - Why Butter is Better
http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/butter.html - The Soft Science of Dietary Fat, Science Magazine, March 2001
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/taubes.html#linktop - Ibid
- Polyunsaturated Oils Increase Cancer Risk
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/fats_and_cancer.html - From The Skinny on Fats
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/skinny.html
and Why Butter is Better - http://www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/butter.html
- Fertility Awareness, Food, and Night-lighting
http://www.westonaprice.org/women/fertility.html and
High Fat Dairy May Boost Fertility
http://www.nutraingredients.com/news/printnewsbis.asp?id=74590
Who wants to eat solid grease that can give you mad cow diease? What a crazy risk to take, especially since mad cow disease has been found to be increasing in the US in meat animals. This article has no references to studies done. All major studies point to those on a low fat diet living much longer than everyone else. Avoiding pure animal fat - which is what butter is - actually cleans your arteries, not vice versa. What an irresponsible article.
Posted on May 15 at 5:58 am
I agree completely with the low carb lifestyle. People need to remove the processed, refined carbohydrates from their diets....PERIOD! Anything containing sugar or flour should be avoided. It's funny when we hear about people telling us to avoid natural fats like butter but then telling us we should be consuming the man made trans fats! It's insane. Read about how we extract all these so called healthy veggie oils......they are super heated and chemically extracted. These man made "Frankenstein Fats" are lethal. You body can't process them. As far as people trying to argue that there was no heart disease because peoples average life span was 60 is absurd. The reason it was 60 is because of the high infant and childhood death rate. If you were fortunate enough to make it out of childhood you stood a very good chance to live to a ripe old age. What people should really be scratching their heads about if why do we have so many overweight, diabetic, and heart attack victims in their 30's and 40's in this day and age? Ladies and gentleman, nature provided very well for us, cut out the processed, reminded garbage and you will regain your health.....and as a bonus will lose weight!
Posted on Apr 30 at 12:25 pm
I agree with John, I can't stand it when people refer to our ancestors leaving out the fact an average lifespan was 50-60 years! I will probably start making my own butter due to cost, but I have consumed butter 80% of the time/20% vegetable oil spreads. I'm obese and I am healthier than thin people I know in regards to blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, etc. Also factor in genes...and remember God doesn't care if you're 5'8 and 125 lbs. Just means you can have a slim-line casket when you die. Which you will. No matter what.
Posted on Apr 9 at 8:11 am
Hey what can i say..... People in india use to live on desi ghee, it is very healthy ask any indian. Young people at one time just drank it no problem and stayed healthy and fit. And now with all these fake foods the problems are rising and Fake butter as in processed pasturized etc is everywhere. EAT REAL BUTTER AND STAY ACTIVE.thats all
Posted on Mar 20 at 1:50 am
if we remove ghee & chilly in your food ,then we consume word 1st class food.
Posted on Feb 7 at 8:33 pm
i m a herbel resercher in pakistan and i dn reserch on butter oil called (desi ghee) in urdu and i can prof any one that butter oil never efect a single % in hert attack and other problems of heart its
because saturated fat was the primary human food for thousands of years.
it doesn't clog arteries.
its a pre planed work do some unhuman business a very huge loby behind all this to stop awairness about butter oil
Posted on Feb 5 at 11:54 am
I thnk a small quantity of good quality of butter every day is beneficial for our health. any thing which we consume in excess quantity is dangerous for our health.
Posted on Feb 4 at 2:05 am
After reading this, im on the fence.There is a lot of opposition in the comments, 1 in particular i think was on the button.
"Butter is a big contributor to health problems, especially heart disease. Butter is a dairy product and as such it is bad for you. Avoid ALL kinds of concentrated oils and fats."
What say you?
Posted on Jan 21 at 9:43 pm
A few people share my same ideas. With all the low fat diets and fat free foods are society is more obese than ever. Take a look in any town and you see gyms and supplement stores selling protein powders and fat burners. So with our health conscious socirty..why are we over weight and having heart problems and getting diabetes? How come our grandparents are living or lived into their 80/90s eating bacon, butter, steak and eggs? their are 2 problems..one is all the steroids we pump into our foods that i believe cause cancer over time. second is people are not eating simple real foods. Bacon and butter are bad..right? Wrong. i have 2 slices of bacon with butter onmy toast every morning and guess what..my cholesterol went down 35 points and im 36 years of age..5ft 9 and 180lbs. Now i do work out 4-5 days a week but not for more than 30-35 minutes. people ask me all the time "how do you stay in great shape..you must eat supper clean." i tell them " not really, i eat bacon, butter and whole eggs everyday". they are shocked when i tell them that. For anyone who thinks butter or Bacon or Whole eggs are bad..Well you really need to learn and read more about eating Real Foods.
Posted on Jan 19 at 8:22 am
Here's my question: How in the world can we afford to buy all of these healthy foods???!!! All of this organic, natural, grass-fed, free-range this and that is so frustrating, because it's so expensive. On an extremely tight budget, I just cn't justify it - please does anyone have any suggestions for inexpensively eating healthy? I don't buy much processed foods anyway, so that has helped, but when deciding between $2/lb and $5+/lb, it makes a big difference!
Posted on Jan 10 at 8:13 am
Butter and saturated Fats have never been proven to increase risk of heart disease, heart attack, or really any ailment at all.
in fact when you look at clinical studies people who go on highfat diets have less risks of heart attacks then those who go on low fat diets.
why?
because saturated fat was the primary human food for thousands of years.
it doesn't clog arteries.
it raises your HDL ( good) cholesterol
and raises LDL type A ( also good) cholesterol
LDL type B is the bad stuff, which you get when you eat simple carbs such as whole wheat and sugar in candy.
the problem is the government made these announcements against what doctors wanted, then any doctor who spoke out against them lost their research grants, which in the science world is your income.
fun fact.
natural saturated fat intake in France is number 1 in the world they have 1/3 the heart disease of america.
if saturated fat is what causes heart disease France should have the most heart disease in the world.
Posted on Jan 5 at 6:41 pm
I'm completely confused. I thought that saturated fat contributed to heart disease? Is this not true? I come from a family of heart disease. My grandmother, father, brother...all their problems started in their early 40's. They are were heavy smokers too. I know that heredity does not have to dictate my life as I am the one in control of what I eat. It is really hard for me to comprehend eating raw butter every day. Don't get me wrong, I do eat butter but try to watch my intake. Is eating raw butter okay because you are combining it with healthy eating? Thanks for any replies.
Posted on Dec 30 at 9:55 am
If butter was as bad as they say, Paula Dean would be have long since died and been posthumously vilified for her dissemination of culinary crimes against humanity.
Crack addicts live for decades on their poison, I'm pretty sure butter is Gods own medicine by comparison.
Posted on Dec 14 at 4:32 pm
This topic goes hand-in-hand with Paleo: http://youtu.be/uCFZoqmKf5M
Posted on Dec 10 at 4:50 pm
Butter is a big contributor to health problems, especially heart disease. Butter is a dairy product and as such it is bad for you. Avoid ALL kinds of concentrated oils and fats.
Posted on Nov 26 at 12:35 pm
i can't believe people can be so ignorant to the point where they deny all scientific facts to satisfy their needs, now butter and saturated fat is good for you? hehe how pathetic
Posted on Nov 15 at 4:42 pm
love raw butter, eat one pound in a week and 1/2
my cholesterol level is 142
blood pressure 117/74
65 years of age
Posted on Oct 28 at 7:15 pm
Woah. I've been studying this a lot lately and everything is pointing to exactly what you're saying: butter is in fact, healthy, and what we've known about it in the past has been.. well, backwards.
Posted on Oct 24 at 10:32 am
I was college when the low-fat wave hit. This is my own observations. It was like overnight dieting became a MAJOR industry. Before that in the 80s, our gyms had bands with shakers as you stood there and gyrated (my step mom worked for a gym in 86, it was the first one I had ever see in Huntington Beach, CA). Very few people belonged to the gym. I joined Holiday (now Bally's) in college. Anyway, at first it was like this "secret knowledge" that you could cut out "fat" and lose weight. It was as well of a kept secret as bulemia or anorexia. My low fat diet turned into 6 years of anorexia and later Thyroid disorders. I was told to not put butter on my toast, put jam. Don't eat peanut butter. Then I counted every fat gram. We didn't have that much packaged food, just cereals and what we called "junk food" reserved for parties. The food industry then went nuts, low fat was everywhere. Everyone one who went low fat, (without the processed food) lost weight...but like me, I ate 600 calories a day - salad - no dressing, puffed rice cereal with skim milk, dinner a bowl of rice with steamed veggies. Not healthy at all. Then everyone on "lowfat" listened to the INDUSTRY and loaded up on sugar and carbs. HOWEVER, those who ignored the information...ate like how we ate in the 70s and 80s stayed slim, and many of them are very healthy today. My great grandmother lived to almost 90, ate steak, liver, and eggs and butter and everything like she ate from the 1920s. She was incredibly healthy, walked her dog everyday, cleaned house, was still driving and mentally very sharp. Now her daughter, my grandmother, who was a diabetic and ate "low fat" everything just like the doctors told her, had a quintuple bipass at 64 and died in the hospital. So, I don't buy the "low-fat" craze. And as one who did it forever, and a hypo thyroid patient...the only thing that helped me come down from 250pounds to 180lbs (5'10" tall) was to throw away every thing the "experts" were saying and just eat "God-made" food...including butter, and all the no-no foods, just like the French, and how Americans lived before the "experts" sold them on their "ideas" from which they made billions.
Posted on Oct 23 at 5:51 pm
Another proof of the colossal stupidity of American people! Geez, the list of scams America has given to the rest of the world never seems to end. Running shoes or the attack on saturated fat or the obsession with packaged protein; you name it and Corporate America will deliver!
Human breast milk is roughly 33% fat of which more than 85 % is saturated fat and CHOLESTEROL. It seems nature has a sinister plan of riddling human babies with obesity and coronary heart disease!
Also, the human breast milk is only 7% protein! Hey, why don't we start pumping protein supplements in our babies so they show good muscular development? After all, don't our body builders on high protein diets grow faster than our babies?!
Posted on Oct 8 at 4:03 am
sophie, please understand that when you read something you can't always take it superficially. when the author states your body "craves" raw butter, it's not implying a craving akin to those most of us have for sugar, sweets, or perhaps alcohol. it simply means our body (our cells and tissues to be specific) "craves" butter for the nutrition it yields. obviously the author isn't advocating that we all give in to our base cravings regardless of what they may be for. now go eat some butter!
Posted on Oct 4 at 9:38 am
Sophie some things you say are true! Overconsumption of carbs leads and sugar intake have helped contribute to our health problems, however, saturated Fats are good for you! If you'd like to understand more about what they do than just google it! Lard and animal fat is very healthy for you it helps your body metabolize minerals. Think about all of the health problems that our associated with the Western diet. Europeans eat 2x as much fat and are healthier people. Duck fat and animal fat is valued in every other culture around the world. High Cholesterol isn't as bad as you think either look that up as well!
Posted on Sep 16 at 9:09 pm
This is scientifically inaccurate in a great many ways, and greatly oversimplifies many things. Also 'body ecology' doesn't make any sense considering ecology in simple terms means the interaction between organisms with each other and their environment. We already have a word for what this article is about... 'health'.
One main reason why Americans are getting fatter and having more heart problems while eating less fat is because they're eating more sugar, which is converted to fat in your body if you eat too much of it. Not because they are eating less butter. The two are not necessarily causally linked even though there may be a mathematical correlation.
LDL and HDL are two different types of cholesterol, where LDLs are linked to heart disease and HDLs not.
Eating things because your body craves them is a recipe for disaster. If your body craves sugar should you eat more of it? People (and other life) have evolved to love high carb food because in nature before we farmed we rarely got any and if we found some, we took it while we could get it. Now because it's readily available already eat way more than our bare requirements every day, and still crave it. What about alcoholics or drug addicts? Healthy cravings? People are easily addicted to sugar and fat though it may not kill them as fast...
Also, surely the beneficial nutrients in butter are also in milk, minus the huge fat content.
Posted on Sep 4 at 3:08 am
Very informative article !
Posted on Aug 13 at 12:45 am
This is very important n useful article....
Since I'd left my parents home and got married I almost didn't eat Butter expecting it's not healthy, and causes over-weight & contains bad Cholesterol
But I was surprised when learned that British Ministry of Health has a 'National Project' to insure a 50g for each citizen @ breakfast due to benefits
Posted on Jul 29 at 1:52 am
I made butter for the first time the other day from heavy cream, and I think I'll be doing this from now on! If you don't believe the health benefits, do it for the taste! Mm mm good.
Posted on Jul 29 at 1:50 am
Poor John, he actually believes that "..the people before us never lived to be 50"! People have been living long lives for a very long time (I won't comment on the Biblical reference) on a diet of natural animal fats. Life expectancy statistics suggesting otherwise reflect the much larger number of children in the past who died of infectious diseases compared to today. My own grandparents, and many many of their contemporaries ate butter and other animal fats every day of their lives, and lived well into their nineties. They didn't partake much of the modern American diet, filled with processed junk and high in carbs.
Posted on Jun 27 at 8:32 am
but how do I find raw cream??!
John--wth
Posted on Jun 24 at 6:27 pm
Great article that confirms many of my suspicions. I am gauging in butter!
Posted on Jun 13 at 9:48 am
John your a typical nitwit. Natural butter the way God intended helped people live to be 900 plus years old. Unless you disregard the Bible the way you do facts.
Posted on May 18 at 5:44 pm
Isn't Donna Gates (creator of Body Ecology) over 60 years old?
Posted on May 17 at 1:09 pm
When you refer to our ancestors, I guess you mean the people before us that never lived to be 50!!! Not many heart problems when you are 32. Rewrite this article when you are 60 if you make it that far. Though I doubt you will.
Posted on May 17 at 8:52 am