Grass fed butter has featured on the menus of people from around the world for centuries and helps enrich just about any food it’s added to making it that little bit more delicious. But how good or bad for you is butter? Some may think butter is seen as one of the baddies when it comes to what we put into our bodies. Especially as low-fat diets have been recommended and prescribed by doctors. Nutritionists and government agencies around the world have also added negative labels over for the past few decades.

In recent years, research has shown that a low-fat diet is not good for the body and many vitamins and nutrients are fat-soluble. Meaning that they require certain fats to be absorbed and processed by the body. In moderation, butter is not bad for you. In fact, butter can actually be good for you and help promote good all round health.

It is estimated that Americans consume 550,000 tons of butter each year. This may sound like a lot. However, when compared to the 1.5 million tons that are consumed across Europe, it is actually quite a small amount. So why do Americans consume a lot less butter than their European counterparts? There is a school of thought that Americans prefer to use margarine instead of butter due to years of being told that it is a healthier option. The truth is that butter is a pure substance. It does not contain artificial flavorings, colorings, and additives that margarine and vegetable fat spreads do.

What Exactly Does Butter Contain?

We all know that butter is made from a process of churning milk to release the fatty acids it contains which turns into a cream. This cream is then further churned to create butter from the butter fats. Butter is made from one ingredient alone. Milk. Butter is a high-fat food standing at around 80% fat content. It also contains over 400 different types of fatty acids and a healthy dose of fat soluble vitamins.

While most of us know that butter comes from cow’s milk, it can actually be made from many other types of mammal milk. Some mammals include goats and sheep to buffalo and bison. Butter also ranges in color from the palest white to a deep, rich sunflower yellow, and when it comes to the healthiest option, the deeper the yellow the better for the body it is. The deep and rich yellow color comes from cows that are grass-fed leading to a more nutritionally dense butter fat loaded with beta carotene.

What Makes Grass Fed Butter So Special?

Aside from the lack of artificial chemicals and vitamins found in cow feed, grass fed cows consume plenty of antioxidants. They also consume pure vitamins from the grass that they eat. This is then filtered down through the cow’s body and helps produce a vitamin and nutrient dense milk. Take a look at what almost a teaspoon of grass-fed butter contains nutritionally, and notice how much healthier it is than margarine and man-made spreads.

• One Hundred calories per 14 grams.
• Eleven Grams of fat of which seven Grams is saturated and ZERO grams of trans fats.
• One percent of the Daily Recommended Allowance of Vitamin A
• Two percent of the Daily Recommended Allowance of Vitamin E
• One percent of the Daily Recommended Allowance of Vitamin K
• Thirty Milligrams of Cholesterol

Butter contains no fiber or protein. However, it also contains absolutely no Trans fats or sugar making it a pure and healthy option. It’s a given that people are scared of saturated facts. However, here’s the thing. The body thrives on saturated fats in moderation and they can help stabilize blood sugar levels. The cholesterol content helps prevent low cholesterol levels which in fact can be a bigger problem than high cholesterol levels. Grass fed butter; much like coconut oil is a healthy and safe way to get your much needed fatty acids.

Which Is Better? Grass Fed Butter Or Standard Butter?

While the two are rather similar in nutritional values, grass fed butter provides higher levels of essential vitamins and minerals than humanly manufactured grain fed cows. In nature, eating a natural and rich diet is always going to come out on top as this is the way that cows were designed to feed. Milk from cows that live on an exclusive diet of grass tends to be richer in fatty acids than grain fed cows. There are also huge differences in the amount of beta-carotene consumed and passed on into the cow’s butter fats. It is the beta carotene that also gives grass fed butter the edge nutritionally over standard grain-fed butter.

Scientific studies have also shown that grass-fed butter contains Conjugated Linoleic Acid in much higher quantities than grain fed butter. CLA is an important and effective immune system booster and can help you fight disease and bacteria in a better way.

So What Is The Conclusion?

If you take into account all of the facts and statistics about grass-fed butter, you realize that butter is a healthier option than margarine. Also much better than standard butter. The health benefits it provides make it the best choice. There is no need to be scared of eating saturated fats. We as humans need them in moderation to help our bodies process certain vitamins and minerals.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you can get away with eating a whole block of butter in one sitting on a daily basis and all will be well. However, if you had to choose to do that between a block of butter or a block of margarine, the butter will always be the healthiest option. Grass fed butter comes from cows that are eating the way that nature intended. In a way that the cow can produce the healthiest and strongest immune boosting milk for her calf’s. These naturally produced fatty acids and nutritional content can also boost our health and overall well-being. There is no need to fear butter.

As with anything, moderation is key.