Ghee Wiz! The power of delicious Ghee.

Imagine a world where your morning toast improves your brain health or popcorn increases your immunity.  What if dessert could help digestion?  Or fried potatoes fought inflammation?  If “lactose free” actually makes food tastier?  This is not a world of imagination.  This is reality, dipped in ghee.  

Have you heard of it?

Ghee is basically butter that is better in every way.  It’s an Indian ingredient that has been around for thousands of years and has its place in the Ayurvedic tradition of health.  In Hinduism, ghee is a symbol of purity and nourishment, often providing the rich, fatty base for Indian sweets and temple offerings.

That’s halfway across the world, so why should you care?

The micronutrient composition of ghee makes it uniquely beneficial to health.  

Ghee is rich with Butyrate, which is an incredible support to your gut health.  It’s normally produced from the fermentation of high-fiber foods in your gut, but ghee offers an external, energy-giving source, without any of the gassy side effects of fiber.  Both through its fortification of the gut lining and its anti-inflammatory properties, the presence of butyrate in ghee means it should be one of your gut’s best friends.  

There are so many vitamins richly available in ghee.  In descending order, it’s a source of vitamins A, E, K2, and D.  One tablespoon of ghee contains about twenty percent of the recommended daily value for women of Vitamin A.  As a bonus, ghee contains the most digestible form of vitamin A, making it more effective than tablet supplements and so much tastier.  By the way, one tablespoon of ghee provides twice as much power as one large carrot for your eye health.  Take it a step further and cook your carrots in ghee.  Delicious.

Are you persuaded yet?

The exact science of why ghee is practically a miracle food is too extensive to contain in a mere blog post.  But basically, your body feeds on healthy fats as a long-term energy source.  This is in stark contrast to energy from carbs, which burns fast and causes the infamous ‘sugar crash’ (yes, even vegetables do not offer nearly as great an energy source as healthy fats).  As such, when you shift towards healthy fat instead of carbohydrates as a source of calories, you’re giving your body an opportunity to take it easy.  

Imagine lighting a fire to keep your home warm as you sleep through the night.  If you pile on dried grass, you’re going to have to wake up every ten minutes to add more in order to keep the fire going.  Carbs are like grass; and much like waking up every ten minutes would leave you exhausted, carbs leave your body overworked and always in need of more.  Fat is a sturdy piece of wood that will burn all night and probably still leave some energy for morning.

Ghee is one of the best of all these fats.  It’s rich with medium-chain triglycerides (don’t worry, you don’t need to remember that).  MCTs, as they are broadly referred to, are an energy-efficient fat.  They are absorbed quickly, not demanding the complex breakdown that most fats do, meaning that the body can mine energy from ghee faster than it can other fats.  MCTs have the additional benefit of boosting brain health and and metabolism.  

Just in case you missed that last sentence, I’ll repeat: ghee can benefit brain health.  The most important organ in our body, the part of us that is uniquely human, the part of us that is most complex, and perhaps the part of us that is most sensitive can reap awesome lifelong benefits from the addition of ghee to your daily diet.  This is not magic or some infomercial sales tactic.  This is an evidence, research, and testing-proven fact.

You won’t solve all your problems by adding ghee to your diet if you’re not doing anything else to help yourself.  However, if you are mindfully making an effort to re-orient your diet towards healthful fat and protein-packed foods, you are taking the kindest action possible on behalf of your body and its lifelong wellbeing.  Ghee is your ally in this journey, offering such diverse benefits that reach literally every cell in your body.

But if you haven’t started your wellness journey yet, maybe adding a spoonful of ghee into your morning coffee is a good baby-step to start with.

Ghee is known as clarified butter, because it is made by simmering butter to separate and remove the milk solids, leaving only butterfat.   This means you can make it at home, with little more than a saucepan and a cheesecloth.  If you’re concerned about the waste caused by the milk-solids left over after butter separation, fear not - these can also be a flavorful addition to desserts and spreads.  

For baked goods, ghee brings your game to a whole new level.  It has a natural nuttiness, and tastes like if gold were a flavor.  In fact, it’s called liquid gold, in part for its many uses and health benefits.

The downside of the 'liquid gold’ nickname is that it is partially due to the cost of ghee.  Of course, because it is made by the separation of butter, ghee used more product for less output.  This means it is not the most cost-effective fat.  However, given the longterm health potential of using ghee in place of more harmful fats (especially trans fats and most cooking oils), if you can spring for the switch to ghee, you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble in the future.  

You can find ghee at common grocery chains, like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, or perhaps by looking in the ‘international foods’ aisle that most stores offer.  However, if you have a local Indian grocery store, that is the safest best.  I buy my ghee from the local Indian store, where there is half an aisle of shelves stocked with all sizes and qualities of ghee.  For thirty-two ounces of grass-fed ghee, I pay just under fourteen dollars.

That’s the same price as a 150 pack of Tums tablets from Target.  Add to that the cost of other cooking oils or household fats that place stress on your digestive tract and gut biome, and suddenly ghee isn’t looking too costly.  Its versatility for use in foods makes it a suitable replacement for virtually all other fatty ingredients.  Its versatility for health makes it a preventative supplement for all of the most common diseases in the Western world.  

That combo is basically priceless.

From ancient India to the modern West, chefs in every kitchen can utilize the unique and wonderful flavor ghee lends to everything it touches.  In the most impactful tradition of Eastern medicine, Ayurveda, and in the cutting edges of technological innovation, ghee reigns as a superior ingredient for the body.  It’s been celebrated for thousands of years and sailed across oceans to find its way into your life.

Be kind to yourself and add this delicious miracle to your daily plate.

And hey, if you don’t like it… send it my way!