Benefits of Butter . . . Redux
Kerrygold grassfed butter is all the rave in the paleo circles. For good reason, and I am glad. But for me, salted raw butter from Organic Pastures is by far the more creamier and tastier product. Kerrigold grassfed butter almost tastes greasy when compared to raw butter. The health benefits can be had from both, but if that is the case then why not opt for the tastier product--that being Organic Pastures raw butter? Read about the benefits of butter from Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD:
When the fabricated food folks and apologists for the
corporate farm realized that they couldn't block America's growing interest in
diet and nutrition, a movement that would ultimately put an end to America's
biggest and most monopolistic industries, they infiltrated the movement and put
a few sinister twists on information going out to the public. Item number one
in the disinformation campaign was the assertion that naturally saturated fats
from animal sources are the root cause of the current heart disease and cancer
plague. Butter bore the brunt of the attack, and was accused of terrible
crimes. The Diet Dictocrats told us that it was better to switch to
polyunsaturated margarine and most Americans did. Butter all but disappeared
from our tables, shunned as a miscreant.
This would come as a surprise to many people around the
globe who have valued butter for its life-sustaining properties for millennia.
When Dr. Weston Price studied native diets in the 1930's he found that butter
was a staple in the diets of many supremely healthy peoples. Isolated
Swiss villagers placed a bowl of butter on their church altars, set a wick in
it, and let it burn throughout the year as a sign of divinity in the butter.
Arab groups also put a high value on butter, especially deep yellow-orange
butter from livestock feeding on green grass in the spring and fall. American
folk wisdom recognized that children raised on butter were robust and sturdy;
but that children given skim milk during their growing years were pale and thin,
with "pinched" faces.
Does butter cause disease? On the contrary, butter protects
us against many diseases.
Butter & Heart Disease
Heart disease was rare in America at the turn of the
century. Between 1920 and 1960, the incidence of heart disease rose precipitously
to become America's number one killer. During the same period butter
consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four. It
doesn't take a Ph.D. in statistics to conclude that butter is not a cause.
Actually butter contains many nutrients that protect us from heart disease.
First among these is vitamin A which is needed for the health of the thyroid
and adrenal glands, both of which play a role in maintaining the proper
functioning of the heart and cardiovascular system. Abnormalities of the heart
and larger blood vessels occur in babies born to vitamin A deficient mothers.
Butter is America's best and most easily absorbed source of vitamin A.
Butter contains lecithin, a substance that assists in the
proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol and other fat constituents.
Butter also contains a number of anti-oxidants that protect
against the kind of free radical damage that weakens the arteries. Vitamin A
and vitamin E found in butter both play a strong anti-oxidant role. Butter is a
very rich source of selenium, a vital anti-oxidant--containing more per gram
than herring or wheat germ.
Butter is also a good dietary source cholesterol. What??
Cholesterol an anti-oxidant?? Yes indeed, cholesterol is a potent anti-oxidant
that is flooded into the blood when we take in too many harmful
free-radicals--usually from damaged and rancid fats in margarine and highly
processed vegetable oils. A Medical Research Council survey showed that
men eating butter ran half the risk of developing heart disease as those using
margarine.
Butter & Cancer
In the 1940's research indicated that increased fat intake
caused cancer. The abandonment of butter accelerated; margarine--formerly
a poor man's food-- was accepted by the well-to-do. But there was a small
problem with the way this research was presented to the public. The popular
press neglected to stress that fact that the "saturated" fats used in
these experiments were not naturally saturated fats but partially hydrogenated
or hardened fats--the kind found mostly in margarine but not in butter.
Researchers stated--they may have even believed it--that there was no
difference between naturally saturated fats in butter and artificially hardened
fats in margarine and shortening. So butter was tarred with the black brush of
the fabricated fats, and in such a way that the villains got passed off as
heroes.
Actually many of the saturated fats in butter have strong
anti-cancer properties. Butter is rich in short and medium chain fatty acid
chains that have strong anti-tumor effects. Butter also contains
conjugated linoleic acid which gives excellent protection against cancer. Vitamin A and the anti-oxidants in butter--vitamin E,
selenium and cholesterol--protect against cancer as well as heart disease.
Butter & the Immune System
Vitamin A found in butter is essential to a healthy immune
system; short and medium chain fatty acids also have immune system
strengthening properties. But hydrogenated fats and an excess of long chain
fatty acids found in polyunsaturated oils and many butter substitutes both have
a deleterious effect on the immune system.
Butter & Arthritis
The Wulzen or "anti-stiffness" factor is a
nutrient unique to butter. Dutch researcher Wulzen found that it protects
against calcification of the joints--degenerative arthritis--as well as
hardening of the arteries, cataracts and calcification of the pineal gland.9 Unfortunately
this vital substance is destroyed during pasteurization. Calves fed pasteurized
milk or skim milk develop joint stiffness and do not thrive. Their symptoms are
reversed when raw butterfat is added to the diet.
Butter & Osteoporosis
Vitamins A and D in butter are essential to the proper
absorption of calcium and hence necessary for strong bones and teeth. The
plague of osteoporosis in milk-drinking western nations may be due to the fact
that most people choose skim milk over whole, thinking it is good for them.
Butter also has anti-cariogenic effects, that is, it protects against tooth
decay.
Butter & the Thyroid Gland
Butter is a good source of iodine, in highly absorbable
form. Butter consumption prevents goiter in mountainous areas where seafood is
not available. In addition, vitamin A in butter is essential for proper
functioning of the thyroid gland.
Butter & Gastrointestinal Health
Butterfat contains glycospingolipids, a special category of
fatty acids that protect against gastro-intestinal infection, especially in the
very young and the elderly. For this reason, children who drink skim milk have
diarrhea at rates three to five times greater than children who drink whole
milk.12 Cholesterol in butterfat promotes health of the intestinal wall
and protects against cancer of the colon.13 Short and medium chain fatty
acids protect against pathogens and have strong anti-fungal effects.14 Butter
thus has an important role to play in the treatment of candida overgrowth.
Butter & Weight Gain
The notion that butter causes weight gain is a sad
misconception. The short and medium chain fatty acids in butter are not stored
in the adipose tissue, but are used for quick energy. Fat tissue in humans is
composed mainly of longer chain fatty acids.15 These come from olive oil
and polyunsaturated oils as well as from refined carbohydrates. Because butter
is rich in nutrients, it confers a feeling of satisfaction when consumed. Can
it be that consumption of margarine and other butter substitutes results in
cravings and bingeing because these highly fabricated products don't give the
body what it needs?.
Butter for Growth & Development
Many factors in butter ensure optimal growth of children.
Chief among them is vitamin A. Individuals who have been deprived of sufficient
vitamin A during gestation tend to have narrow faces and skeletal structure,
small palates and crowded teeth.16 Extreme vitamin A deprivation results
in blindness, skeletal problems and other birth defects.17 Individuals
receiving optimal vitamin A from the time of conception have broad handsome
faces, strong straight teeth, and excellent bone structure. Vitamin A also
plays an important role in the development of the sex characteristics. Calves
fed butter substitutes sicken and die before reaching maturity.
The X factor,
discovered by Dr. Weston Price (and now believed to be vitamin K2), is also
essential for optimum growth. It is only present in butterfat from cows on
green pasture.19 Cholesterol found in butterfat plays an important role in
the development of the brain and nervous system.20 Mother's milk is high
in cholesterol and contains over 50 percent of its calories as butterfat. Low
fat diets have been linked to failure to thrive in children21--yet low-fat
diets are often recommended for youngsters! Children need the many factors in
butter and other animal fats for optimal development.
Beyond Margarine
It's no longer a secret that the margarine Americans have
been spreading on their toast, and the hydrogenated fats they eat in commercial
baked goods like cookies and crackers, is the chief culprit in our current
plague of cancer and heart disease.22 But mainline nutrition writers
continue to denigrate butter--recommending new fangled tub spreads instead. These
may not contain hydrogenated fats but they are composed of highly processed
rancid vegetable oils, soy protein isolate and a host of additives. A glitzy
cookbook called Butter Busters promotes butter buds, made from
maltodextrin, a carbohydrate derived from corn, along with dozens of other
highly processed so-called low-fat commercial products.
Who benefits from the propaganda blitz against butter? The
list is a long one and includes orthodox medicine, hospitals, the drug
companies and food processors. But the chief beneficiary is the large corporate
farm and the cartels that buy their products--chiefly cotton, corn and soy--America's
three main crops, which are usually grown as monocultures on large farms,
requiring extensive use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. All
three--soy, cotton and corn--can be used to make both margarine and the new
designer spreads. In order to make these products acceptable to the up-scale
consumer, food processors and agribusiness see to it that they are promoted as
health foods. We are fools to believe them.
Butter & the Family Farm
A nation that consumes butterfat, on the other hand, is a nation
that sustains the family farm. If Americans were willing to pay a good price
for high quality butter and cream, from cows raised on natural pasturage--every
owner of a small- or medium-sized farm could derive financial benefits from
owning a few Jersey or Guernsey cows. In order to give them green pasture, he
would naturally need to rotate crops, leaving different sections of his farm
for his cows to graze and at the same time giving the earth the benefit of a
period of fallow--not to mention the benefit of high quality manure. Fields
tended in this way produce very high quality vegetables and grains in
subsequent seasons, without the addition of nitrogen fertilizers and with
minimal use of pesticides. Chickens running around his barnyard, and feeding off
bugs that gather under cowpaddies, would produce eggs with superb nutritional
qualities--absolutely bursting with vitamin A and highly beneficial fatty
acids.
If you wish to reestablish America as a nation of
prosperous farmers in the best Jeffersonian tradition, buy organic butter,
cream, whole milk, whole yoghurt, and barn-free eggs. These bring good and fair
profits to the yeoman producer without concentrating power in the hands of
conglomerates.
Ethnic groups that do not use butter obtain the same nutrients
from things like insects, organ meats, fish eggs and the fat of marine animals,
food items most of us find repulsive. For Americans--who do not eat bugs or
blubber--butter is not just better, it is essential.
Notes
Price, Weston, DDS Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,
1945, Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, Inc., La Mesa, California.
Representative of American folk traditions about butterfat
is this passage from "Neighbor Rosicky", by American author Willa
Cather: [The Rosickys] had been at one accord not to hurry through life, not to
be always skimping and saving. They saw their neighbours buy more land and feed
more stock than they did, without discontent. Once when the creamery agent came
to the Rosickys to persuade them to sell him their cream, he told them how much
the Fasslers, their nearest neighbours, had made on their cream last year.
"Yes," said Mary, "and look at them Fassler children! Pale,
pinched little things, they look like skimmed milk. I'd rather put some colour
into my children's faces than put money into the bank."
Cranton, EM, MD and JP Frackelton, MD, Journal of
Holistic Medicine, Spring/Summer 1984.
Nutrition Week Mar 22, 1991 21:12:2-3.
Enig, Mary G, PhD, Nutrition Quarterly, 1993 Vol 17,
No 4.
Cohen, L A et al, J Natl Cancer Inst 1986 77:43.
Belury, MA Nutrition Reviews, April 1995 53:(4) 83-89.
Cohen, op cit.
American Journal of Physical Medicine, 1941, 133;
Physiological Zoology, 1935 8:457.
Kabara, J J, The Pharmacological Effects of Lipids, J
J Kabara, ed, The American Oil Chemists Society, Champaign, IL 1978 pp 1-14.
Jennings, IW Vitamins in Endocrine Metabolism, Charles
C. Thomas Publisher, Springfield, Ill, pp 41-57.
Koopman, JS, et al American Journal of Public Health 1984
74(12):1371-1373.
Addis, Paul, Food and Nutrition News, March/April 1990
62:2:7-10.
Prasad, KN, Life Science, 1980, 27:1351-8; Gershon,
Herman and Larry Shanks, Symposium on the Pharmacological Effect of Lipids,
Jon J Kabara Ed, American Oil Chemists Society, Champaign, Illinois 1978 51-62.
Levels of linoleic acid in adipose tissues reflect the
amount of linoleic acid in the diet. Valero, et al Annals of Nutritional
Metabolism, Nov/Dec 1990.
34:6:323-327; Felton, CV et al, Lancet 1994
344:1195-96
Price, op cit.
Jennings, op cit.
DeCava, Judith Journal of the National Academy of
Research Biochemists, September 1988 1053-1059.
Price, op cit.
Alfin-Slater, R B and L Aftergood, "Lipids", Modern
Nutrition in Health and Disease, Chapter 5, 6th ed, R S Goodhart and M E Shils,
eds, Lea and Febiger, Philadelphia 1980, p 131.
Smith, MM, MNS RD and F Lifshitz, MD Pediatrics, Mar
1994 93:3:438-443
Enig, op cit.
"Diet Roulette", The New York Times, May 20,
1994.
About the Authors
Sally Fallon is the author of Nourishing
Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the
Diet Dictocrats (with Mary G. Enig, PhD), a well-researched,
thought-provoking guide to traditional foods with a startling message: Animal
fats and cholesterol are not villains but vital factors in the diet, necessary
for normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection
from disease and optimum energy levels. She joined forces with Enig again to
write Eat Fat, Lose Fat, and has authored numerous articles on the subject
of diet and health. The President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and founder
of A Campaign for Real Milk, Sally
is also a journalist, chef, nutrition researcher, homemaker, and community
activist. Her four healthy children were raised on whole foods including
butter, cream, eggs and meat.
Mary G. Enig, PhD is an expert
of international renown in the field of lipid biochemistry. She has headed a
number of studies on the content and effects of trans fatty acids in
America and Israel, and has successfully challenged government assertions that
dietary animal fat causes cancer and heart disease. Recent scientific and media
attention on the possible adverse health effects of trans fatty acids
has brought increased attention to her work. She is a licensed nutritionist,
certified by the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists, a qualified
expert witness, nutrition consultant to individuals, industry and state and
federal governments, contributing editor to a number of scientific
publications, Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and President of the
Maryland Nutritionists Association. She is the author of over 60 technical
papers and presentations, as well as a popular lecturer. Dr. Enig is currently
working on the exploratory development of an adjunct therapy for AIDS using
complete medium chain saturated fatty acids from whole foods. She is
Vice-President of the Weston A Price Foundation and Scientific Editor of Wise
Traditions as well as the author of Know Your Fats: The Complete
Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol, Bethesda
Press, May 2000. She is the mother of three healthy children brought up on
whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.
