A few decades ago the medical establishment decided butter was bad for you.
While the decision stuck in people’s minds, the bad reputation is undeserved.
The big reason butter suffered is because it was caught up in the war on fat.
The war on fat said was an ill-fated theory which posited if you ate fat you’d become fat. Butter, made up primarily of fat, was badmouthed because of its fattiness.
The good news is the war on butter (and fat) isn’t just unsubstantiated…it’s actually dead wrong.
If you love butter, you can breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy eating it without worrying about it making you fatter than you’d like.
Here’s why.
People who eat animal fats, which would include butter, and have an otherwise healthy diet full of animal based proteins, along with plenty of vegetables and fruits, will be able to enjoy butter because the fat can actually be used as energy.
The caveat to this is?
Your carbohydrate intake should be in ratio to your protein and fat intake.
If your diet consists heavily of animal fats and other healthy fats (like olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil etc.) and a fair amount of protein… and is also low in carb, your body will actually use fat as energy.
In essence, your body will turn butter into clean fuel to help you perform at your best.
Now it should noted, not all butter are equal.
Hands down the best kinds of butter to eat are butter coming from cows eating grass,
Grass fed better is far superior and far healthier than its conventional counterpart.
The reason why is conventional butter coming from m grain/corn fed cows, can actually cause serious health problems. The reason why is these cows produce butter which is high in inflammatory fats (Omega-6 specifically) and this can be very problematic to your health.
In fact, there is a long list of illnesses which have been associated with the inflammatory fats in normal butter.
This is why you want to eat grass-fed butter.
Grass fed butter is low in the inflammatory fats that relate to health problems and is actually chock-full of important nutrients you’ll struggle to find in (the same amounts) conventional butter.
These nutrients include:
- Vitamin K2
- Butyrate
- Omega 3 Fatty Acids
- CLA
- Saturated Fats
Here’s how these nutrients affect your health:
Saturated Fats: Guess who, most of what you know about saturated fats is wrong. Saturated fats don’t actually give you heart disease, and despite what you might have heard…healthy saturated fats (those found in grass-fed butter) have been shown to fight it!
How do they do this? By raising the levels of HDL (good) cholesterol. What happens here is when your HDL levels rise, the risk of developing heart disease begins to plummet.
On the other hand saturated fat will then drive down LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.
Then there’s Butyrate: Butyrate, or butyric acid has been shown to be strongly anti-inflammatory.
This property helps fight diseases resulting from chronic inflammation…which has been linked to a myriad of disease.
In this case, it can help fight things like heart disease, cancer, arthritis, dementia, and more!
By eating grass-fed butter and ingesting butyric you might be able to prevent chronic illnesses like heart disease.
Vitamin K2: Vitamin K2 is one of the most exciting “new discoveries” in recent years.
K2 is vitally important to the formation of healthy bones. Without it in your diet, your bones will grow weak and frail.
K2 works to help draw calcium out of the blood and into the bones. If you don’t get enough of it in your diet, you’ll being to accumulate calcium in the arteries, which could lead to an eventual heart attack.
K2 is found in great amounts in grass-fed butter.
And let’s not forget about CLA: CLA, or conjugated linoleic acid is a trans fat which is extremely healthy for both your heart as well as many other functions in the body.
Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple writes:
[CLA] has been linked to superior heart health, suppression of tumors, reduced belly fat (although in pigs, I’m not sure that’s what we’re after!), and greater fat loss in the obese and overweight – pops up in the flesh and dairy of the animal. As far as cows go, pasture feeding leads to dairy CLA levels 3-5 times that of grain-fed cattle
There’s every reason in the world to add CLA to your diet.
Lastly, there’s the presence of Omega 3 Fatty Acids: These fats are anti-inflammatory as well. Omega 3s are the same fats found in salmon and fish oil. Omega 3s have been associated with better heart health, and are believed to be crucial for many other aspects of health.
Grass-fed butter’s fat profiles are consistently much higher in Omega 3s than their conventional counterparts.
The evidence collected forms a clear picture. To experience better health, grass-fed butter should make its way into your diet.
If this sounds good to you, keep eating butter. Just make sure it’s grass-fed today.
