8 Health Reasons to Eat More Butter

Butter has been unfairly demonized by outdated nutritionists and blamed for everything from heart disease to obesity.

The reason, they say, is that it’s high in fat. Saturated fat in particular.

The consequence of this unfair crusade is the appearance of artificial butter replicates like trans-fat laden margarine.

As Kris’s law states, when the nutrition authorities do something that is supposed to improve our health…

(For example, reducing the amount of butter in the diet to reduce cholesterol and heart disease.)

…it ends up having the exact opposite effect.

In this case, replacements like trans-fat laden margarine appear and actually end up increasing the risk of heart disease (1).

I like to believe that butter is healthy, and for that there are several reasons that can be backed up by scientific data.

This applies to real butter that is made from the milk of grass-fed cows. This doesn’t apply to butter from grain-fed cows and it certainly does NOT apply to butter replicates like margarine.

I’m going to skip the saturated fat discussion, but if you want to remind yourself why there’s no need to worry about saturated fat then you should read this.

Butter is completely lacking in carbohydrates and can therefore be enjoyed on a low-carb diet.

It is a great option when you need to add fat to an otherwise dry meal, such as lean fish or chicken breasts.

Cooking these lean foods in some butter makes them taste better and go down easier, not to mention making them more satiating.

Butter is fairly rich in short- and medium chain fatty acids (with a chain length of 4 to 12) which may be uniquely satiating and even more fulfilling than other saturated fats (2).

A tablespoon of grass-fed butter contains about 10% of the RDA for Vitamin A (3).

Another nutrient that is often ignored is Vitamin K2, the animal form of Vitamin K (the plant form is K1, not as good).

High fat, grass-fed dairy products like butter are rich in K2, which may have various health benefits, including a reduced risk of heart disease (4).

Butter from cows fed with corn will contain a lot of Omega-6 polyunsaturated fats compared to Omega-3, moving the ratio in the wrong direction.

If the cow is grass-fed, the ratio of Omega-3:Omega-6 will be closer to ideal, making butter a relatively healthy fat in this regard.

Butter is very rich in the 4-carbon fatty acid Butyrate. In fact, the fatty acid actually derives its name from butter, Butyr(ate).

This fatty acid, also produced from fiber by some of the bacteria in the intestine, may provide various health benefits such as improved insulin sensitivity, lower cholesterol, lower triglycerides and increased energy expenditure.

Grass-fed butter is also rich in the Omega-6 fat Conjugated Linoleic Acid, which is often sold in isolation as a weight loss supplement.

Some evidence suggests that this fatty acid may reduce body fat and increase lean mass, although supplementing with it has produced mixed results (5, 6).

A study came out fairly recently that examined high-fat dairy consumption and its relation to western diseases.

In this study, high-fat dairy consumption is actually associated with a lower risk of obesity, despite being high in fat (7).

Butter is composed mostly of saturated fatty acids.

This makes it great for cooking as saturated fats are heat stable and don’t oxidize as easily as polyunsaturated fats.

Food is good. Butter makes it better.

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