13 Feb Benefits of Ghee
Grass-fed butter is heaven. It’s a staple ingredient in our house. If you are still stuck in the ‘fat is bad’ mentality, that’s been debunked for quite some time and that’s a whole other topic we’ll cover some other time. But right now, I want to talk about ghee. It’s butter, but different. There are so many health benefits of ghee!
Ghee is butter that has been heated and the milk fats have been separated from the butter….leaving ghee. Ghee is a great alternative for people who have problems digesting lactose and milk proteins, like casein. It has a flavor similar to butter, but more intense. Ghee has tons of short and medium chain fatty acids.
What does that mean?
Most of our society consumes long chain fatty acids, but the shorter the chain of fatty acids the faster your body is able to use it for fuel and it absorbs much faster. So, it’s not being stored as fat, but being utilized by your body. Studies show that short and medium chain fatty acids will increase energy and decrease weight gain.
A certain short chain fatty acid that ghee has is butyrate. Butyrate is known for it’s anti-inflammatory properties, building a strong gut lining, and promoting healthy digestion. A study done in the World Journal of Gastroenterology,
A growing number of studies have stressed the role of butyrate in the prevention and inhibition of colorectal cancer. At the extraintestinal level, butyrate exerts potentially useful effects on many conditions, including hemoglobinopathies, genetic metabolic diseases, hypercholesterolemia, insulin resistance, and ischemic stroke.
Ghee was also studied to increase antioxidant and prevent fatty deposits in the artery of rats. Another study also showed that significantly lower fatty deposits in the arteries. Ghee increased the HDL (which is healthy increased number to have) and decreased triglycerides.
Ghee is also has a higher smoke point, since the milk fats are taken out. It’s smoke point is about 450 degrees F compared to butter’s 350 degree F. This makes ghee a perfect fat to use for cooking without having to worry about passing the smoke point. When fats pass their smoke point, they can create more free radicals and become unstable and destroys the health benefits of the oil.
Health Benefits of Ghee
Nutrients
Just like butter, ghee is loaded with the fat soluble vitamins.
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin K
- Vitamin E
Quality Matters
There is ghee that is made from vegetables, but it contains trans fats. What you should be looking for is a ghee made from grass-fed cows. For this month of February 2017, Save 10% on Bulletproof on a good quality grass-fed ghee.
Are you looking to add ghee into your diet? Have you tried it? What do you think? Instead of butter in our chicken piccata recipe, try ghee!
