Growing up, butter was an absolute staple in my household. We thankfully never got into the margarine craze because my mother believed that butter was good for the brain. Turns out, she was right about that and scientists have now concluded that butter is actually good for you in other areas too. It’s high in a compound call CLA that protects you from tumor growth and cancer, is not inflammatory like man-made oils from corn, canola or soy, and provides a nice dose of Omega 3 fatty acids, if you get it from the right source. But finding the right source can be tricky given all the buzz words and fancy marketing these days. Choosing the wrong type of butter can secretly ruin your health without you even knowing it! Here’s a look at what’s really going on and how to choose the healthiest butter for you and your family.
Beware of Monsanto Butter
***Updated Graphic: Shortly after this blog post was published, Smart Balance announced they would go Non-GMO***
I call conventional butter “Monsanto Butter,” because it comes from cows fed almost entirely genetically engineered or GMO grains and Monsanto is the largest producer of GMOs.
Conventionally raised cows are most commonly fed GMO corn and soy, however, some farmers fatten up their feed with additional sugar from GMO sugar beets and cottonseed. Cotton is the most toxic crop because it isn’t treated as a food crop but as a textile (it has less regulation.) And then conventional dairy cow feed is sometimes fortified with additional protein, Omega 3 fatty acids and CLA from GMO rapeseed (canola) because the cows are not getting these nutrients naturally from the grass. GMO alfalfa hay is also commonly fed to cows. So basically, conventionally raised cows are almost entirely getting their food from GMOs – food that was created in a laboratory, that hasn’t been tested long term, but has produced horrific results in several alarming animals studies.
Over 49% of all GMO corn is fed to animals or livestock. Only 2% of the GMO soybeans grown are actually fed to humans, the other 98% get fed to animals. Those figures are pretty scary once you consider the astronomical amounts of herbicides being sprayed on these GMO crops and what they are doing to the increase cancer rates, harm the environment and ourselves.
Land O’Lakes = Monsanto Butter
Land O’ Lakes was a staple in my household growing up. We’d use the whipped butter like it was nobody’s business – my mom would use it on her infamous parathas (Indian stuffed flat bread), in countless desserts and to make homemade ghee. Once I found out what was really happening at Land O’Lakes, my Mom and I had a little chat. I explained to her that Land O’Lakes is owned by a pro-GMO company called Dean Foods. Land O’Lakes co-developed genetically engineered alfalfa, directly contributing to the GMO animal feed supply. I also explained that Land O’Lakes contributed nearly $100,000 to the “No on I-522 Lobby” – the bill to label GMOs in Washington State. This is all on top of the fact that Land O’Lakes is not organic, raises their cows with growth hormones linked to cancer, antibiotics and harmful pesticide ridden GMO feed. I told my Mom she has to stop buying Land O’Lakes if we are going to change this world!
Knowing all these facts, plus the health risks of consuming GMOs, my Mom finally asked “what butter can I buy?” Well there are many brands out there that are light years ahead of Land O’Lakes. Here’s a Butter Buying Guide that will help you (and my Mama) navigate the butter aisle next time you hit the market:
Updated Graphic: Removed Smart Balance From Chart
How to Choose The Most Nutritious Butter
- Organic – First and foremost, look for organic butter. This will ensure there are no growth hormones, antibiotics, harmful pesticides and GMOs being fed to the cows. Growth hormone or rbGH that is used to raise cows conventionally is linked to cancer and often accumulates in highest concentration in animal fat. One organic brand I’m suspicious of however, is Horizon, they are owned by Dean Foods (the same company that owns Land O’Lakes). The Cornucopia Institute has filed complaints for labeling their product organic while maintaining factory farm production methods. I won’t buy Horizon organic for that reason.
- Grass-fed – Grass-fed or pastured raised cows are going to be more nutritious than cows raised with grains. Remember, the highest amounts of the most beneficial CLA and Omega 3 fatty acids naturally come from grass-fed cows. Also grass-fed cows produce butter with 50 percent more vitamin A and E and 400 percent more beta carotene (which gives the grass-fed butter a deeper yellow color).
- Ghee – Ghee is clarified butter where all the proteins, milk solids and lactose is removed. This makes the butter more digestible, concentrated with nutrients and really great for immunity building. Ghee does not need to be refrigerated, it can stay on the counter for a few months without going bad. People with dairy allergies or sensitives often do ok consuming this type of butter. Pure Indian Foods, Purity Farms and Ancient Organics have the best offerings in that they are both high quality, organic and grass-fed.
- In an ideal world, you would be able to find butter that is both organic, grass-fed and no additives like Organic Valley (in the green foil wrapper) , but sometimes that’s just not the case. In that circumstance, I would go for either an organic butter or grass-fed butter like Kerrygold (please note – Kerrygold uses some grains that could be GMOs a couple of months out of the year because grass doesn’t grow year round in Ireland – they admit that 3% of their feed could contain GMOs). Choosing regular organic butter will lessen your exposure to pesticides but will also provide less nutrition since the cows will mostly be fed organic grains vs. grass. Regardless, these choices are superior choices over conventional butter and both options (in light green on the chart above) will lessen your exposure to GMOs.
- Beware of butter mixes with labels like “with olive oil” – 9 times out of 10, these butters will have one or more GMO ingredients like soybean, corn or canola oil. These mixes may have questionable additives in them too – check the ingredient list just to be sure!
- Don’t Eat Butter? Here are some Vegan Substitutes – If you are vegan, skip all the “butter like” or fake butter spreads like Smart Balance that contain GMO oils, artificial ingredients made from petroleum and unnecessary preservatives. Instead, choose 100% coconut oil, olive oil, red palm oil (that is sustainably harvested from Ecuador and does not hurt the rainforest) or hemp oil instead. Also coconut manna, or butter works well too, when slightly heated it spreads just like butter. (These are also much healthier than organic spreads like Earth Balance that are usually a combo of inflammation causing oils).
Sharing the truth is the first step in changing the food system. If you know someone who is buying Monsanto butter, please share this information with them. Our choices can really change the marketplace, make us healthier and change companies decisions to use these unhealthy ingredients.
Much Love,
Food Babe
Your butter buying guide image is too small to see the brand names. Do you have a bigger version?
I agree! That’s exactly my frustration! It is blurry to the point of totally unreadable even zooming on my iPad. Why can’t they just write the names of the butter brands they recommend? I was in Dr. Mercola’s site reading about butter and found Food Babes Butter Buying Guide, only to find it useless. You can’t read it. The guide was useless on his site, so I searched for Food Babes. Same problem. Food Babes! Is the point to inform people what’s bad, or wouldn’t you like to help the more discerning consumer on how to purchase smarter? If you tell people what brands that are not good to buy, isn’t it sort of pointless to not give clear information on which ones to buy?
After wasting one hour in all this, I don’t have any nore practical information when I head to shop than before I read anything.
I’ll add a second to that.
How about a nicely written request with a thanks for even doing the research and posting this for all of us? Try this:
“Thanks, Food Babe, for educating us on which brands are better than others for us. Would you mind also including a list of brand names, as the packaging is not legible to me. Thanks again for doing the research so we don’t have to.”
I for one appreciate the FREE information she provides.
“Thanks again for doing the research so we don’t have to.”
I agry! it´s about time someone say it loud. Thanks!
These professional blogs are done professionally and can be viewed perfectly on a PC or ipad. Yes, its a pain but blame technology. It’s hard for us all to keep up!
I think you need to edit your article regarding palm oil. The harvesting is destructive. http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/
There is a palm oil you can purchase which is grown in a sustainable manner in Africa on small family-owned farms without harming the surrounding wildlife. http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/red_palm_oil.htm
I have a question. Land-o-Lakes has an organic butter which we have been buying. Would this fall under the ‘safer’ butters?
I am caregiver for a dairy sensitive person. I found “Organic (grass fed) Buffalo Butter” at New Seasons store in the cheese section seems to have zero reactions to it.
Horizon Organic brand was owned by Dean Foods. After being bought out by Dean, Horizon was soon sued for using non-organic production methods for its “organic” labeled dairy products. For whatever reason, Dean Foods is no longer the parent company, but I stopped buying Horizon after the merger. i could just tell by taste and texture that it was no longer organic.
Dean Foods spun off Horizon into White Wave, but don’t be fooled, The Board/Owners of White Wave is the same people that owns Dean Foods
On the best to worst butter chart, I think the column on the far right should have a gray background to indicate that these are not even butter but butter substitute spreads. Also you should add a column further to the left which would include raw milk butter–both fresh and soured.
Please respond to all the questions above and repost the chart.
I emailed Wild Harvest and they said that they’re butter has been discontinued. That’s a shame since it was one of only two grass-fed butters listed above.
Wow, Thank you! I am sure that took several hours to research and compile!
Suggestion: Also show images of the non-dairy products you suggested.
Your best to worst chart is impossible to read. Please just print the names as well as show their pic. Thanks,
I have contacted Organic Valley about the grass fed cow’s butter you indicate on the picture in this article, however, when they responded to me officially via e-mail they said they currently do not have 100% grass fed cow butter. Please check with them and revise your article.
Oh lordy, give this awesome woman a break, commenters. Its a very good article.
Organic valley has 100% grassfed in the spring, called pasture butter, which is what she described above in the green wrapper. They do not have it all year long, it’s true, but they do havr it for part of the year. She states clearly that palm oil should only come from specified sustainable sources.
I have a small ghee company. We use organic, CULTURED butter, which is soooo much more tasty. Cultured butter is not raw, but once you make it into ghee, its not raw anyway. Our butter is mostly grassfed, but grainfed oart ofbthe year, due to climate. The grain is organic. Do your best. Organic valley is a good choice, if you live in oregon, you can get mothers choice organic, or sierra nevada cheese company makes a vat cultured grass fed butter. Yum.
the only problem with the so called healthier butters that you named is that the majority of the population has to do their butter shopping in walmart or brookshire brothers where they don’t sell those “healthier” butters you named.
Then you should go somewhere else for your butter.
Grass fed and finished butter is hard to come by in the average grocery stores or Walmart (the worst for choices). But buying the KerryGold will be way better than any of the Land O Lakes or store brands!
I purchased Organic ghee based on the recommendation from many but was shocked to see Trans Fat in the Organic India brand ghee. I assumed it is organic ghee so I cant go wrong. I bought 2 bottles that I am going to return soon unless they respond back with an explanation : http://organicindiausa.com/organic-ghee/
All butter contains trans fat–a small amount. It’s different (a different bond in the molecule, I think) than the trans fat found in artificially hydrogenated oils, and some people believe it may even be beneficial. Here’s an interesting article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/dining/07tran.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
What you saw was just a completely honest food label. Don’t return your ghee!
Interesting.
Thank you
You do have a choice where to shop. Aldi’s have the best prices and carry health foods.
Aldi has cheap food for a reason. It is cheaply made with tons of bad stuff in it. I have shopped there but now that I know better I dont.
I am SO ANGRY right now! I switched to Smart Balance years ago thinking it was healthier than other margarines because the government said butter is unhealthy!
We stopped using it last year because I felt as tho it was all a huge lie and that the tiny bit of olive oil they put in did not make up for all the soy [estrogen that we are bombarded with in tons of foods) and other ingredients I could not pronounce they put in it as well!
DAMN this government for poisoning our foods! THIS is where all the cancer and other terminal illnesses are coming from. We don’t need a cure, we NEED them to STOP POISONING OUR FOOD SUPPLY! Now this so called POTUS has taken healthcare from millions of Americans so that many will suffer and die. We are seeing this already! How EVIL!
smart balance is now GMO free and they even have an organic version
Just a thought . . . what is the irony of our government backing Monsanto and granting them the freedom to do whatever they choose to our food supply . . . and the same administration goes nuts disrupting health insurance payment systems . . . which we all are needing more of because the food most of us eat is more like Soylent Green than what our grandparents were blessed with; so we need more crappy drugs and the pharmaceutical companies are making out like pirates throughout all this . . . give us crap food, we get sick, etc, etc, etc. And what of the fraud of the First Lady attempting to improve school lunches, but without good, safe, uncorrupted foods . . . she is aware of the Monsanto situation.
Saw you on The Doctors today so am new to your website. I think I agree with most of what you say. For food producers to try to tell us that crap they feed the cows does NOT come through in the milk is just plain stupid. We definitely always have to apply common sense to every thing they try to convince us of. Their agenda consists entirely of greed of the dollar. It makes sense to me that if you put out a product that is real and true, your sales will go up and your company will be more respected!!
Land O’Lakes is a member-owned co-op….it’s not owned by Dean Foods.
Land O’ Lakes also spends a lot of money to prevent GMO labeling.
Is there a petition out trying to ban Monsanto? It seems that a lot of problems we face with food are coming from them. I hear a lot of countries are banning the company all together.
There are marches and petitions nationwide from what I have seen. We have had a few in Florida but I have also seen pictures from other states.
Sorry Babe, Land o Lakes is my butter of choice.
As for ghee–too much processing
Ghee is heated whole butter with the whey separated from the fat. That’s all! Hardly “processed”.
You remind me of my father in law. Traditional Italian who believes he knows quality food. He thinks real bread is something labeled Freihofer’s or Wonder. It is hard to convince someone who’s brain has been soaked and washed by Monsanto for the past 30+ years. Land o Lakes is junk food.
Land-O-Lakes is Margarine not butter.
What about tillamook and challenge butter?
Geez, rude people demanding she redo the chart and make the names legible! How about a nicely written request with a thanks for even doing the research and posting this for all of us? Try this:
“Thanks, Food Babe, for educating us on which brands are better than others for us. Would you mind also including a list of brand names, as the packaging is not legible to me. Thanks again for doing the research so we don’t have to.”
I for one appreciate the FREE information she provides.
Mary,
agreed!!!
FYI: Costco’s Kirkland Signature butter is not solely grassfed but it is organic. It’s so nice to see only two ingredients on anything, including this butter.
Yes there are people fighting Monsanto, there is a small organic farm in Bridgewater, Maine that has taken them to court before. In Maine we have a butter called Kate’s homemade butter, it is really good. I don’t know if it passes the food babe test, I hope so because it tastes and bakes the best.
My Dad is trying to change his diet and informed me that he switched to Country Crock. Of course I had a bunch of red flags come up in my mind and wanted to give him a better explanation, which this article came in super handy. What would you say to a person trying to watch their cholesterol and trying to be heart healthy? Love the Army!!
For those who are concerned about cholesterol levels please read Cholesterol Clarity and be worry free. Cholesterol Clarity is an easy read and really delivers on the ‘clarity’ aspect.
Quick look version – “Don’t even have your doctor measure for cholesterol.” Your body will make all the cholesterol you need – so if you reduce it using pharmaceuticals you are taxing your body mechanism to replenish it. Your brain needs cholesterol.
LDL isn’t cholesterol – Low Density Lipoprotein –
See also Wheat Belly blog.com (as well as the book Wheat Belly, esp. chapter 10) for further study
Can you tell us more about different options? I buy the Earthbalance soybean butter. I’m thinking it’s probably awful, and of course I love it.
Hi Vani,
What are your thoughts on Earth Balance and their claims about using ‘sustainable’ palm oil? I see that they have claims on their website saying they are approved by Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) BUT isn’t that company just a bunch of people invested in the palm oil industry?
I’d appreciate your views on this issue!
Thank you,
Courtney
I would like to know where to buy Organic Valley in the green foil wrapper?
Thank You.
Cheri Rapson
FRANKLIN PARK, Ill., July 10 /PRNewswire/ — Dean Foods Company (NYSE: DF) and Land O’Lakes, Inc., announced today that Dean Foods has completed the purchase of Land O’Lakes Upper Midwest fluid milk operations. The two organizations have also formed a joint venture to nationally market and license certain value-added fluid and cultured dairy products to further expand the LAND O LAKES(R) brand. Both
LOL sound assets to Deans. Deans does not own LOL. Read the article
I never said Deans Owns LOL-I was merely showing another poster that the buy was in fact on the Upper Midwest Fluid Milk operations ONLY-I most likely should have posted my response listing to whom I was addressing it to-
Personally-we churn our own butter and make our own cheese from milk we buy direct from a dairy farmer here in Georgia that has grass fed cows and milks their cows the old fashion way-by hand. We also raise our own chickens that are truly free range never caged from birth and eat the way chickens were meant to eat-best dang chicken you’ll ever grill or rotisserie.
What about the butter the Amish sell from their small stores connected to their farms? They say they churn it daily. They sell it by the pound in unlabeled plastic containers which they keep refrigerated in “ice box” type wooden cabinets that use ice to keep the temps cool..
Your facts are completely wrong. Land O Lakes is a member owned company. Deans is a private company that mostly markets fluid milk. As for your thoughts on GMO link to all the different butter you use in your article, why don’t you use some real evident and science.
Hi,
You should definitely retest and re-evaluate based upon Non-GMO change-overs.
A lot of companies, including Smart Balance, have made the Non-GMO switch.
Let us know! I’d like to see what you think!!!!
Is there a way to buy these butters in bulk to make it less expensive. It’s waaaayy to expensive for the little 1lb boxes in the stores. We just cannot afford it. I’ve been buying organic butter only and grassfed when I feel I can afford the extra but we are having to cut back on food budget and we go through butter too much to keep buying it like we have. We use it in baking, homemade waffles, pancakes, fruit bars etc. If there was a less expensive way to buy it I’d love to know. We have a local farm where we get our milk but the butter is kinda pricey.
Since you can’t make omelets without breaking eggs perhaps the ‘can’t afford healthy food’ idea needs a new approach. We tend to ‘budget’ food as a unique category. But the food we eat also has ramifications in many other areas of our life.
We now know eating fat doesn’t make you fat. Eating carbs makes you fat. We now know inflammation is the root of most human ailments and diseases. “Let food be thy medicine” is an age old proven adage being “discovered” by a new generation.
Healthy whole grains don’t exist. Baking with flours made from grains increase sugar intake which leads to inflammation which leads to disease which leads to medical expenses and costly medications. Your food choices lead to expenses beyond your grocery budget. Better choices ( even those that appear expensive) can actually reduce your weekly grocery bill. These better choices like switching almond flour or coconut flour for grain based flours; using Xylitol or Swerve or Stevia for sugar, and changing the oils you use for baking and cooking to healthy coconut oil will feed your family all the ‘sweet’ carbs they crave (These cravings for sweets will soon fade as they experience the wonderful feelings of being full not ‘starving’ after eating a meal not followed by a huge sweet “treat’ known as dessert.
Grain Brain, Wheat Belly, Keto-Advantage, Keto Clarity and Sally Fallon’s “The Oiling of America” can be found on YouTube for a quick look at the ‘new’ science of eating.
Eat better foods, be better physically, emotionally, reduce pharmaceutical and medical costs and see what your true food costs are.
If you want to help your budget tremendously as well as your health, I recommend you read Dr. John McDougall. One book is called the Starch Solution. He has complete information for free online on how to eat healthy. You would be amazed at how much you can save by eating high carb, low fat and it does wonders for the health of thousands (millions?) who try it. Think how much you would save if you didn’t buy meat, cheese, eggs, butter, or oil? Plenty of money left over to buy organic vegetables (yea potatoes) and fruits and while eating all you want, without even trying, you can lose excess fat and become or stay healthy. If you want you can even make your own soy milk and yogurt for like pennies a quart.
Thankfully, we buy our butter from a local Mennonite community.
this is in need of an update — smart balance is not GMO free and they even have an organic version
I know that’s what we have been using because it’s now GMO free, but the vegetable oils are still bad I guess so we are trying to find a much healthier butter but it’s proving to be a hard task -_-
What about Costco’s brand? They have an organic butter as well.
I found the blue box of Organic Valley butter at my grocery store and on it, it says pasture raised, it’s very expensive for me to buy though (4.99lb.) but is it worth it or should I keep trying to find pure grass fed (which is proving hard especially since I live in Vermont, it’s probably because I don’t have a car though)… So should I just stick with coconut and olive oil for now or is that a good butter? Your butter guide says it’s only in the light green category but I’d prefer my butter to be in the greener category (I have an extremely tight budget low-income basically so it’s hard to get healthy things but I try my best anyways), so is it worth it or not?
Thanks Ab
Do you know anything about the Kirkland brand of butter from CostCo?
Thankfully got on the grassfed, organic butter bandwagon over 2 years ago and will never go back to these gross, subpar “food-like” science experiments masquerading as butter! However, there’s a brand I really like and frequently buy their products but they aren’t listed here as a good option. It is Kalona and here’ s a link to their site: http://www.kalonasupernatural.com/ Would you recommend them as well? My local natural grocers all carry their products and they have the best chocolate milk I have ever tried although it’s a rare treat at our house. Could you tell me if you’ve done any research into their products? Thank you! Love what you do.
What do you think about the “Costco” butter? Kirkland Signature brand?
Thank you,
Susan
Me and family use Kate’s Creamery butter. We use it on daily basis along with coconut oil and ghee. I was wondering if Kate’s was a trust worthy brand. My family has been aware of monsanto butter for a while but often wonder if the butter we are consuming is GMO. We really like the taste of this butter, so i was wondering if you could find out. Thank you!
I would love to put this information and pictures in my research paper. Do I need permission for copy rights?
No, if you site your sources properly to qoute or summarize you do not need permission.
Hi I’m from Ireland and we have NO gmo foods here in the winter when grass doesn’t grow we feed hay to the cows which is grass collected in summer and dried out so the Irish butter is the best
One thing left out of this article is the fact that nearly all the bad stuff that is in milk to start with (hormones, antibiotics, pesticides) is concentrated in the fat (butter is 100% fat) so eating non organic butter is much worse than drinking non organic milk. If you are going to buy anything organic, it ought to be your butter. Second point, although it is very expensive, perhaps it would help you use less. Americans consume way too much fat in general. Oils are poison to our bodies, and while butter is much better, still it contributes to weight gain and attendant problems. It is possible (albeit difficult) to cook with little or no fat. I recommend FatFreeVegan.com for great recipes that prove this.
Sorry to burst another bubble but as I’ve discovered Americans eat far too little fat – saturated fat that is. Americans eat far too much trans fat and hydrogenated fat (like regular peanut butter) that is fats with way too much omega 6. The high carb low fat diets started by adopting the fraudulent studies of Ansel Keyes. These corrupted findings are now and have been for a long while promoted by the American Heart Assoc, the AMA, the Diabetes Association, Big Pharma and other agencies and organizations. They persist in disseminating false and misleading information even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The multi-billion dollar industries tied to the “healthified food” illusion lobby the gatekeepers to perpetuate the ‘cheap food is good (enough) food’ myth. This encourages population growth which produces more consumers which generates more wealth for a shrinking elite.
Eat fat (saturated not poly or trans fat) and get thin
Eat too much protein raise blood sugar – get fat (and sugar related diseases)
Eat too many carbs (humans need virtually zero carbs – your body manufactures it as needed) – get fat
Eat fruit – spike blood sugar – get fat (and disease)
Eat starchy vegetables – spike blood sugar – get fat (and diabetes type diseases)
Eat sugar (and alcohol) spike blood sugar – get fat
Check out the exploding diabetes numbers. Check out the exponential growth of Alzheimer’s . Your Low Fat High Carb is a lemming stampede off a terrifyingly high cliff.
For more info that will be your GPS toward a better life read (or YouTube) William Davis MD., David Perlmutter MD., Jimmy Moore, Maria Emmerich, Sally Fallon, Eric Westman MD and others.
Live long and eat well (Humans are Fat Heads)
YOU’ve discovered? And how did you do this? Did you do a massive survey, or a double-blind controlled experiment? I agree with much that you have said, but I believe you are wrong thinking that animal foods, especially fat, is the answer to health. Absolutely none of what you claim as truth has been proven and there is much evidence to the contrary. It is absolutely untrue that carbs make you fat, as long as you aren’t eating fat. It’s true that fat-free cookies and fat-free crackers and such do make you fat if that is what you mainly eat along with butter, etc.. Eat a starch based, vegetable, whole food diet with very low fat, no added-oil and you will lose weight and become healthy. Dr. McDougall has been doing it with his patients for decades and there are many thousands of happy herbivores proving to themselves that he is right every day.
Hi again . I enjoyed your enthusiastic reply. You asked for the basis for my discovery about the food fraud begun by Ansel Keyes and endorsed by almost every organization and association that turned out to have a vested interest in indoctrinating the public with the idea “high carb/ low fat” is good for everyone.
I did include a footnote reference list of some of the authors and researchers who most influenced my ‘food discoveries’. Perhaps you have had a chance to view or read some of the scientific work they reference. But as the first rules of science is “Question Everything” I look forward to examining opposing views.
An interesting place to begin might be your statement “Carbs don’t make you fat.”
Would you enlighten me as to just what does make one fat?
A second point, please don’t assume that when I say eating fat and substantially reducing carbs goes a long way to healthy weight and a healthy brain I mean you must eat meat. I do but your life choice may be different. My caution about protein (no matter the source) is that too much will be stored by the body as sugar and thereby become visceral fat. Reference Keto Advantage and/or Keto Clarity either of which evidence science over belief systems to advance a food plan for a healthier America. Your interest in oils (being not too healthy – I agree) is confirmed with a more thorough explanation given by Sally Fallon “The Oiling of America” on YouTube.
High Fat, moderate Protein and very low Carb – a lifestyle for a healthy life. Daily exercise will be easier to follow.
If you are looking to truly know what is happening in your body after you eat a meal use a glucometer before eating and 30 minutes after the start of your meal and again 60 minutes later. The beginning and final numbers should be the same / similar.
I at one time had type II diabetes so I know how my food choices affect my blood sugar. I also know that I had congestive heart failure along with the diabetes, and now they are both gone along with 55 pounds of fat. I no longer test my blood after meals but go by the A1c tests. I did this by following the eating plan of Dr. John McDougall which is freely available online. I belong to a Facebook group called McDougall friends and I see people improving their health in different ways all the time on this way of eating. I am 72 years old and I was doing “paleo” when it was called the Air Force Diet, and Adkins, and I’ve done them all from WeightWatchers to the Goddess – this way is best for me. I am never hungry, never count calories or grams of anything, don’t have to watch my portions and can eat comforting, filling foods like chili beans and cornbread, stir-“fried” veggies with rice with sauces, sweet potatoes and white potatoes and corn chowder, spaghetti with various sauces, etc. As they say, there is no free lunch and I do need to give up oil and animal products and most processed foods. Its worth it to me. What puts fat on a person is not just a simple one word answer, but if I had to use one I would say fat.
Organic Valley Pasture cows are fed grains. I just called the company.
Dear Food Babe, I come from a small country where dairy is still less contaminated with GMO and additives (Belarus). We have quite primitive agriculture, but famous for our dairy. There we only have butter which shelf life is maximum 60 days. Now I live in China and have to buy Kerrygold butter. Could you please ask them, what they add into it so it can be stored 18 months?!! Any fat will be oxidated in 1,5 years. And, IMHO, according to taste and the way it melts, it is not pure butter, but it has some margarine added ( it’s just my opinion). I am MD and very concerned about transfats. PS. You do amazing educational job. Good luck.
What about plugra?
Hello Food Babe, I use Challenge Butter, what do you think about that one?
I use President’s Butter…please tell me this is on the “good” list!!
Great article – thanks for the research. However, I think your title is a bit dramatic, like “evening news bait-and-switch”, and not in line with the article itself. A more appropriate title might be “Is The Wrong Butter Secretly Ruining Your Health?”
So is earth’s balance ok to purchase? They have so many varieties… Help!
Thanks Food Babe. You rock!