What is ghee?

Ghee is all of the oil present in butter. The process of making ghee involves slowly simmering butter (ideally pastured, cultured butter) for a long time until all of the moisture (lactose) cooks off and the milk solids begin to caramelize. Once strained, what remains is a golden pure butter oil void of lactose and casein, the two compounds in dairy considered most inflammatory.

Why choose ghee as a cooking oil as opposed to more common oils?

Warning, this is a long winded answer! We are passionate about the utilization of saturated fats, especially ghee, when it comes to everyday cooking. Why? Well, the short answer would be to look at what we’ve been eating for centuries! Ancestrally speaking, animal fats are what our species evolved on. These types of fats are what we are systemically built to eat, they compose 60% of our human brain. Why didn’t our grandparents have to diet? What has changed in the last 50 years, leading to a society sicker than ever? Well, many things. But a primary widespread component of that shift involved a switch in our cooking oils: from animal-based to vegetable-based.

There has been quite the debate going on surrounding the different types of dietary fat one should or should not consume. Ghee is a saturated fat, meaning it has no broken bonds when you look at its carbon structure. Other types of fats include polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAS) & monounsaturated fatty acids. The main difference between these fatty acids is their stability when exposed to stressors (like heat, air, and light). Because of their broken carbon bonds, polyunsaturated fats are the least stable. These are your vegetable oils, corn oils, soybean oils and certain nuts and seeds. Monounsaturated fats like avocado oil, olive oil, and other nuts and seeds are also unstable in nature. When an oil is unstable, it oxidizes easily when exposed to heat (aka, hot fry pans, ovens, and eventually the human body), leading to rancidity. This isn’t to say some monounsaturated fats can’t be healthy, they just shouldn’t be heated. Chronic oxidative stress can eventually slow the metabolism and lead to all sorts of imbalance in the body. Almost all processed food contains some sort of vegetable oil, usually canola or soybean, even though those are known to be pro-inflammatory and are strongly correlated with obesity. WHY? Exactly. Almost like our economy and pharmaceutical industry are structured in a way that rely entirely on us staying sick - not to mention the research against saturated fats and in pursuit of (cheap) vegetable oils was heavily funded by big pharma.

The case against saturated (animal) fat has thankfully mostly been put to rest. Saturated fats are extremely stable, meaning they are least likely to lead to oxidative stress because they are stronger and more resilient in their structure. Furthermore, they play a lot of vital roles in our body chemistry. Some examples include:

~ Saturated fatty acids make up at least 50% of the cell membranes. They are what create our cells’ necessary stiffness and integrity.
~ They play a vital role in the health of our bones. For calcium to be effectively incorporated into the skeletal structure, at least 50% of the dietary fats should be saturated.
~ They guard the liver from alcohol and other toxins.
~ They are anti-inflammatory and help protect the immune system.
~ Saturated fats have antimicrobial properties, which protect us against harmful microorganisms in the digestive tract, specifically the small intestine.

If all saturated fats are good, why choose ghee?

Several reasons for using ghee both as a cooking oil and as a carrier for herbal medicine include:

~ Its unique ability to cross the blood-brain barrier (and placental barriers!). Ghee is actually the only form of fat with the ability to do this. This means it is able to nourish the cerebrospinal fluid in the brain which is responsible for memory and intellect. Because of the ability to cross this barrier, Ayurveda considers ghee to be a highly effective medium for transporting the healing nature of herbs very deep into our tissues. For thousands of years Ayurveda has created numerous Ghritas or herbal/medicated ghees – herbs infused into ghee in order to enhanced their therapeutic effects.

~ In Ayurveda, it is considered the “lightest” form of fat which the human body can digest. And anything which can be digested & assimilated well, lends itself to being used by the tissues and cells.

~ It contains high levels of butyric acid, also known as butyrate, which is a short chain fatty acid (SCFA) that the intestinal tract thrives on, as it helps to protect the integrity of the gut wall. Much of the healthy fiber that we eat directly feeds the intricate microbiology in the gut. In turn, the gut converts this ingested fiber to butyric acid, the primary ingredient in ghee. This is why consuming ghee can aid in digestion and help stoke the agni, or digestive fire, in times of stagnation.

~ Ghee made from pastured grass-fed cows has the highest natural source of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), a known anti-carcinogenic. CLA helps boosts the immune system and keep cholesterol levels in check. Ghee also contains useful anti-viral agents (caprylic acid) and anti-fungal agents (lauric acid).

~ Ghee is rich in Vitamins A, D, E & K. We’ll let you research why each of those are essential. ;)

Why infuse herbs into ghee, and not alcohol or other oils?

Herbalism harnesses many different methods of extractions for many different indications and purposes. Since most herbal compounds/constituents are fat soluble, ghee acts as an incredibly bioavailable carrier oil for many reasons. Firstly, it’s a pure fat, so those plant constituents are assimilated into the body easy (this is what we mean by bioavailability), requiring little energy. Secondly, since the process of making ghee removes the inflammatory components like lactose and casein from the butter, the body doesn’t need to work as hard to access the medicine. This same concept can be applied to cooking food in ghee - since those tougher-to-digest compounds have already been cooked out, you can think of ghee as a perfect lubricant for any food.

Where do you source your butter?

Rumiano Cheese is where our organic, American Humane Certified, pasture-raised & grazed butter comes from. They are based in Crescent City, California and their cows graze on open pasture a minimum of 300 days a year. The landscape and climate near Crescent City are perfect for grass-fed dairy cows. The primary permanent pasture in the area is made up of Selina clover, red clover, rye grass and other coastal grasses. It’s an abundant, low-stress environment for cows. During the days they are not grazing on fresh grass, they are supplemented with species-appropriate organic fermented hay in open barns.

We are dedicated to working exclusively with farms that agree with our core principles. Interestingly, the term “grass-fed” can be awarded to farms pretty easily. “Grass-fed” and “pasture-raised” have vastly different indications. “Grass-fed” can equate to a diet of dry hay fed to indoor-kept cows, while “pastured” or “pasture-raised” usually means cows are allowed access to open pasture. We can’t stress enough how important it is to truly investigate your dairy sources, and all of your animal food sources. Factory farming and mainstream animal agriculture does absolutely nothing good for anyone involved - not us, not the environment, not the farmers and most certainly not the animals subject to that level of cruelty and disrespect.