BUTTER! I love butter.
Real butter. And when I’m cooking, I don’t skimp.
When I was growing up in the 1970s it was totally uncool to eat butter. We ate margarine instead.
Why?
Because that’s what the margarine-manufacturing companies told us would be healthier. They promised us it would reduce our saturated fats. And it did. But, unfortunately, the rates of obesity and diabetes only increased. Yikes!
Human beings have been eating butter for thousands of years. Why, all of a sudden, was butter bad for us? I hate to say it, but it comes down to money. Companies could make more money manufacturing something that is quasi-plastic and selling it to us as a butter replacement.
THAT’S uncool.
Butter, on the other hand is über-cool.
Especially this Irish butter than we’ve been getting lately. The brand is Kerrygold, and it is amazingly good.
It’s a deep, rich yellow. Not like those pale sticks that are oh so common today.
Butter… Yum!
If you want to learn more about how good real butter really is for us, then check out The 20 Health Benefits of Real Butter.
I also want to invite you to check out Real Food Wednesdays, hosted by Kelly The Kitchen Kop and CheeseSlave.
Here’s a taste of what you will find over at BodyEcology.com about the benefits of butter:
- 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.
So, load up on some delicious butter and…
Bon appetit!
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Photo courtesy of Miss Shari on Flickr.com.
Crawfish Etouffee
I LOVE BUTTER and I love this post, Jeff! This is perfect info for the class I’m developing called “The Skinny on Fats.” Kerry Gold is my fave. They sell it for a great price at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods – $2.79. It regularly graces my morning omelets, steamed veggies and just about anything else I can think of to add it to liberally…my cholesterol tested “Excellent” according to my MD and I am 5’1″ and 95 lbs… Oh, and my grandma always cooked with butter and lard and is now 101 years old and still lives on her own. Go figure.
Emily, I’m right there with you! I’d love to know more about “The Skinny on Fats.” It sounds like it’s right up my alley. That’s a great price from Trader Joe’s. I get it locally for $3.79. It’s worth every penny. I am amazed at the difference in flavor compared to “regular” American butters. I am also amazed at how wrong all our assumptions seem to be when it comes to which foods really are healthy. So many people are convinced that “low-fat” equals healthy, and that simply isn’t true. I can’t wait to learn more about The Skinny on Fats. Please let me know when it’s ready!
Excellent Article Jeff. Its a shame how the AHA and the medical industry in general has villainized saturated fat for more than 50 yrs. Sources of saturated fat such as grassfed butter and coconut oil are very healthy for us. I experienced this first hand. I had extremely high cholesterol (300 Trigs) and in 1 week brought it down to 68 after switching to a paleo, wheat and processed food free, high saturated fat diet. I’ve been this way for more than 2 months and my doctor is completely astonished at my blood work. Kerry Gold is great because not only is it butter, but grass fed, meaning the cows ate grass, not grains. Just as most people have issues with digesting gluten found in grains (whether they know it or not), Cows don’t do well on it at all, and get all sorts of ailments from it.
Hello — is anybody still there after 6 months? Isn’t “paleo” and “wheat” a bit of a contradiction? I would LOVE to have the/a Christian take on paleo — how God in the old testament and new speaks of bread as being so important to life, and yet grains are disparaged by the paleo kings (Mark Sisson et al) as being so unsuitable for us regardless of how they are prepared (fermented grains, etc.). (oh, and if dairy and honey (raw, unprocessed versions) are so wrong for us, what’s the ‘Land of Milk and Honey’ all about? And the only thing paleo about John the Baptist’s fare would be th locusts — honey being a no-no. HELP!
Paleo seems to have several faces. There’s even vegan and vegetarian paleo diets apparently (gasp) as well as the tried and true (in my case) High Fat/High Protein/Very Low Carb paleo diet. Some paleo groupies believe in “safe starches”; other paleo groupies believe there are no safe starches. Some adherents believe some starches are okay during the warmer months of the year with plenty of sunshine (vitamin D), but not during the cold-dark months.