Getting Thin and Healthy on Butter
Butter is considered unhealthy by many in the United States, however recent research and observations of other cultures show butter to be a health food.
Five years ago, I sailed to Turkey and ended up living there in a small village. I was craving something different and ready to see first-hand how other cultures eat.
Turkish cuisine, being part of the Mediterranean diet world, had particular appeal to me. I immediately took to mezes, the little plates of vegetables, fish, and cheese drizzled in olive oil.
But the real gem here is butter; it comes from cows grazing on wild greens. Such butter costs a fortune in the United States, but it is plentiful and cheap in the villages here. I sauté my vegetables in it, melt it on potatoes, stir it into my oatmeal and always add some to rice. It is brimming with nutritional benefits.
Most villagers in this Aegean costal area have their own dairy cows. These animals eat wild grasses and other indigenous plants that have never been sprayed with chemicals or had their DNA altered. The village cows are fat with thick, healthy fur and clear black eyes. They are not in need of antibiotics. They produce plenty of milk for all who want it here so hormones to force out more are not necessary.
Village women are also healthy and strong, with smooth olive skin and a bounty of energy. Suzan, a young mother in my village, cares for her family, gardens and cows. Each morning she prods her three jet black Holsteins up the winding trail behind the village to graze.
I once follow her into the hills. After passing the dry rocky outskirts of the village we descend into a lush valley. Here she gathers greens for the family meal: nettles, marrow, dock and wild mustard, the same plants on which her animals graze. She lugs a huge bag home for the week's borek, a traditional vegetable and cheese-filled flat bread grilled on a hot iron slab over burning coals.
Once a week Suzan make a series of dairy products. She begins by culturing the milk to make ayran, a fermented yogurt-like beverage. She also makes yogurt. The remaining milk is poured into a stainless steel drum that rapidly spins the milk until it separates into butter above and liquid whey below. Before these electric spinning devices, butter was made by rocking the milk briskly in round, thin necked terracotta pots, much like the one decorating my front porch. The watery leftovers are boiled to make lor, a low-fat cheese.
Turkish doctors, eager to align with the now debatable low-fat message of the West, tell villagers to eschew their traditional butter. Fortunately the village elderly suspect a ruse. The villagers who have taken this advice end up frequenting the doctor, and they don't look well.
It turns out grass-fed butter is not only a rich, delectable traditional food for many cultures; it has been protecting the health of civilizations for centuries. Consider the French and the Swiss; these heavy butter-users are among the longest-lived people on earth, and suffer few heart attacks. Butter produced from grass-eating cows is particularly healthful.
Grass-fed dairy is rich in a veritable miracle substance called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). CLA destroys cancer cells in the lab. French researchers found that women with the most CLA in their diets have a 74% reduction in their risk of breast cancer.
CLA helps with weight loss as it causes fat cells to release fat to be burned as energy. Humans fed high levels of CLA have less fat and more muscle mass than those fed low levels. Animals fed CLA-rich diets form less artery plaque. Grass-eating cows produce 500 percent more CLA in their butter than grain-eating cattle.
Grass-fed butter also provides two to five times more omega-3 fat, another fat-burner and heart-healthy fat associated with fish. Cows eating green plants are able to produce omega-3 fat, just as fish do from eating plankton. Omega-3 fat protects against depression, cancer, mood disorders and Alzheimer's disease. Grass-fed butter is also low in omega-6 fat, the inflammatory fat Western diets contain in excess.
Grass-fed cows produce butter with 50 percent more vitamin A and 20 percent more vitamin E than grain-fed cows. They also produce milk with more beta-carotene and selenium. Living green plants are a powerhouse of nutrition and these nutrients get passed on in the dairy products of animals that consume them.
But, whoa! Doesn't butter cause clogged arteries and heart attacks? Back in the early 1900's, when Americans used butter and lard as their principle sources of fat, only 8 percent of deaths were from heart attacks. By the 1950's heart attack rates rose to 30 percent, the leading cause of death. During the same period butter intake dropped from eighteen pounds to about two pounds per person per year. Heart attack rates went up as butter intake went down.
Butter is about half saturated fat which, it turns out is a good thing, especially for women. Dariush Mozaffarian, a Harvard researcher, recently found women who eat the most saturated fat have the least amount of plaque build-up in their arteries. They also have a healthier balance of good and bad cholesterol levels.
It turns out saturated fat is necessary for health. For calcium to be absorbed, at least half of our dietary fats need to be saturated. This makes butter the ideal-bone-building food. Saturated fats protect the liver from alcohol and Tylenol, making it the perfect party food.
And cholesterol? There are 33 milligrams of cholesterol in a tablespoon of butter, not a huge amount to begin with, but more importantly research has never been able to show eating cholesterol leads to more heart attacks or shorter lives. In fact, many studies show the opposite. As women age, high cholesterol levels are associated with longer lives. In men, low cholesterol levels are associated with mental decline, cancer, stroke and Parkinson's disease. Most heart attacks happen in people with low or normal cholesterol levels.
Only when cows eat a diet of 100% live greens, can you be sure you are getting the most health-promoting, fat-burning nutrients in your animal products. In the U.S., 85 to 95 percent of cows are not eating their greens. When I am in America I spend a small fortune for grass-fed butter. It's available in many natural food or gourmet stores.
Suzan's doctor tells her to eat less butter, that it will give her a heart attack and make her get fat. She is part of the new generation and looks to the Western world for scientific advice. Cholesterol is infamous the world over, it seems. I try to explain, in my broken Turkish, why she should feel confident with her traditional food, that we have gone astray in some ways in the West. She smiles and nods, not wanting to offend me.
See my Shopping Guide for sources of grass-fed dairy.
References
Low Cholesterol Increases Risk of Parkinson's, MSNBC September 29, 2005
Saturated fats: what dietary intake? Am Jr Clin Nutr 2004;80:550-559
Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes, 2007 Alfred A. Knopf
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