"Eat butter first, and eat it last, and live till a hundred years be past."

– Dutch proverb

"That, my dear, which is the subtlest part of curds rises,

when they are churned and becomes butter.

"In the same manner, my dear, that which is the subtlest part of the food

that is eaten rises and becomes mind.

– Chhandogya Upanishad

“Look at you...  Look at those legs.  They’re like buttah!  Like two sticks of buttah lashed together in a rough-hewn manner.  I look at you and I think, ‘I can’t believe it’s not buttah!’”

– Mike Myers as “Linda Richman” to Barbara Streisand (video here)

But of all the quotations above, with all due respect to Mike Myers and Vedic poets, it’s the Dutch who are right on with their proverb: "Eat butter first, and eat it last, and live till a hundred years be past."  Butter is one of the most wholesome and healthful foods you can eat, provided it is good quality butter.  Eat butter from grass-fed cows regularly, and you’ll be further along on your way to a healthy life.

What exactly is so great about butter?  Aside from the delicious taste, butter – especially butter from certain times of year – is actually a concentrated source of some essential fat-soluble vitamins you may be missing in your diet, some of which are surprisingly rare. 

Background and benefits

In the 1930s and 40s, many centuries after the Upanishads, and over 50 years before Mike Myers put on a big wig and declared everything good to be “like buttah,” a dentist named Weston A. Price set out to study the diet and health of traditional cultures around the world, and to determine why so many populations eating traditional diets were healthier than the patients he saw at home who had been raised and sustained on a Western diet of highly refined foods. 

Recent research has identified this compound, replacing the superhero-esque name “Activator X” with the more straightforward: Vitamin K2 menaquinone-4 (or MK-4).  (Check out this in-depth article for more information.)  Haven’t heard of it or spotted it on the vitamin-laden shelves in your local drugstore?  It’s not particularly well-known, although it’s essential to our health in ways still being explored.  Vitamin K2 seems to interact with and enable actions of other fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin D and vitamin A (both also found in butter) and minerals such as calcium.  It is critical for healthy bone development and bone strength, plays an essential role in fetal development, seems to help with decreasing calcification of the arteries, and plays a role in neuronal structure and in preventing the loss of brain cells due to lack of oxygen in particular.  It concentrates in cells essential to our physical and neurological development and health.  In short: while we’re still learning about it, you don’t want to leave this vitamin out of your diet.

Nature’s cues, and losing our butter knowledge

So, where to find vitamin K2 MK-4?  It’s found in some of the most nutritious foods on Earth: liver (especially goose liver), butter, fish eggs, eggs, and, in trace amounts, in cheese and meats.  For this form of the vitamin to occur in these animal products, Weston Price’s observations remain true: it is found in the fats of animals consuming a lot of plant matter that’s high in phylloquinone, vitamin K1.  For land mammals, that means those raised on pasture, and in particular, those eating the rapidly-growing grasses of spring and fall. 

Why this grass?  There’s an interesting story I found in Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, a great reference source for word geeks, originally published in 1894 back when butter was more respected.  Brewer’s has an entry on the flower buttercups that caught my eye:

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   BUTTERCUPS
   

3. So called because they were once supposed to increase the butter of milk. No doubt those cows give the best milk that pasture in fields where buttercups abound, not because these flowers produce butter, but because they grow only on sound, dry, old pastures, which afford the best food. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, says they were so called “under the notion that the yellow colour of butter is owing to these plants.” 
   

4. - Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
   

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So much for “I’m called Little Buttercup... though I could never tell why...”  Now we know.  Buttercups flower most prolifically in springtime, when the butter is best.  In the springtime too, when the grass is growing quickly, plants produce significant amounts of vitamin K1, which ruminants conveniently transform into Vitamin K2 for us (thanks, ruminants!) when we consume their delicious fat in the form of butter.

How do we know it’s time to eat the butter?  Gardener’s Dictionary was right about the color.  I was engaging in some serious butter-eating a few weeks ago, when I was lucky enough to be having brunch with friends and family at Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, and enjoying the plentiful, local butter they put on our table.  I remarked on its deliciousness to a woman across the table.  “I don’t know,” she hesitated, “it’s kind of a weird color.”  It was yellow. 

Butter is supposed to be yellow.  Nature sometimes helps us realize a food is good for us by hitting us over the head with visual cues.  Nature does that with K2-rich butter: it’s extremely yellow, compared to the slightly-yellow color of grass-fed you’d see other times of year.  Virtually no butter we find in the supermarket these days is yellow; it’s white as paper, from cows largely fed grain (or worse).   No wonder that friend was afraid of the real thing, although she wasn’t for long after I explained why it was yellow. 

We’ve lost our path when it comes to butter.  We eat margarine, eat tasteless butter from cows stuffed with grain, and buy boxes of microwavable “buttered popcorn” (another crime against nature) that has no trace of actual butter in it, but is instead covered in chemicals and oil. 

We’re also taught to believe butter is bad for us, an indulgence, something that will give us a heart attack and make us fat.  This simply isn’t true.  The fat found in butter does not turn into the fat found on our bodies, and instead is essential for our absorption of nutrients and our neurological health.  I’m a voracious butter-eater and very slender, but I also encourage you to think of your health in other terms than weight; being skinny is not always a sign of health.  Beyond the fat-phobia, butter is a great source of vitamin A, which is essential to heart health.   Butter isn’t bad for your heart; there is pretty solid evidence about good quality saturated fats not causing cardiovascular disease.  (Plus, you might notice that we have a lot more heart disease than we used to, and we eat a lot less butter and a lot more processed food.) 

Meanwhile, in addition to the benefits of vitamins A and K2 MK-4, butter is a source of vitamin D, vitamin E, and a protective fatty acid that may help prevent cancer.  There are a number of benefits to wholesome, full-fat dairy, as we’ve previously discussed here.  And grass-fed butter is specifically correlated with lower rancidity, higher nutrient levels, and improved texture.  Are you convinced?  (Check out this article for more of the nutritive benefits of butter.)

My only caveat before I encourage you to dive head-first into a vat of butter or otherwise indulge in a buttery lifestyle, is to choose your butter carefully.  Butter is, unfortunately, a potent source of dioxin, especially non-organic butter from cows fed grain, and butter from certain parts of the world where there are high levels of toxic compounds like mercury and dioxin in the water and soil.  In fact, it’s sadly ironic that it was a Dutch proverb that touted the benefits of butter for longevity, considering that butter from the Netherlands now has some of the highest recorded levels of dioxins of any region.

How to get your butter

Now that I’ve talked up grass-fed butter, I’m going to break it to you that it’s not easy to find.  Sorry.  Most butter sold in stores is grain fed.  I recommend four ways of getting the benefits of grass-fed butter into your diet:

1. 1.Look for local butter from grass-fed (also called “pastured”) cows directly from farms and creameries in your area, or online. Stock up your freezer with butter in the spring and fall, or whenever the grass is growing rapidly in your region and the butter looks very yellow.  Here are a few sources:
   

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3. •Organic Pastures in California
   

4. •Heavenly Acres in California has goat butter
   

5. •Spring Hill Cheese in California - I bought from them in San Francisco
   

6. •Golden Glen Creamery in Washington has grass-fed butter in spring through fall
   

7. •Ebert Family Farm in Colorado
   

8. •The Pastureland Co-op of farms in Minnesota will send you grass-fed butter
   

9. •Edelen Farms in Texas
   

10. •Search this list of raw milk producers for the word “butter” and you may find others nearby
    

11. •Search Local Harvest’s website
    

12. •Add your other sources below in the comments section!
    
    

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2. 2.Make your own butter. If you can get your hands on some cream, preferably unpasteurized, from a local dairy where the cows are munching grass, you might want to try making your own butter.  Sea Breeze Farm in Washington sometimes has cream I’ve used to make butter.  It’s easy and fun.
   

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3. 3.Buy it in the store. Organic Valley is starting to sell pasture butter from the spring to fall months.  You can find this in most co-ops or natural-ish food stores.  Some of those stores might also sell local grass-fed butter.  Organic Valley’s looks like this:
   

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4. 4.Butter oil.  This is based on what Weston Price fed the children whose health he worked to improve through diet.  It’s a concentrated source of K2 menaquinone-4 and tastes amazing.  It’s really expensive, but one jar contains many doses.
   

So, now you have all this good butter... what do you do with it?  Here are some ideas:

Ten ways you can eat butter this week!

1.  Eat it straight

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This is the simplest way to get butter into your body.  I eat chunks of butter all the time.  Not dabs of butter, not dots of butter, but chunks of butter.  Munch on butter while you’re cooking with it anyway.  Snack on butter.  Feed butter to the people you care about.  It tastes good, it’s healthy, and it will make your skin look and feel great.

1. 2. Sauté mushrooms, onions and/or garlic
   

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1. The day someone first sautéed alliums (onions, garlic, leeks, shallots) or mushrooms in butter was a fine day in the advancement of human life.  The creamy earthiness of butter brings out the flavors of alliums and mushrooms like nothing else.  One word of caution: you have to be a little careful sautéing with butter, because it has a low smoke point, meaning it can turn brown and start smoking pretty quickly, at which point the fats are breaking down.  Keep the heat on medium, and add the onions and/or garlic when the butter is just beyond melting, lightly bubbling, and not yet browning.  Cook the onions until they are translucent and slightly golden-brown.  Add more butter, a little salt, and the mushrooms.  Cook mushrooms until they have released all their juices.  You can add in a little more melted butter, cream, white wine, salt, or fresh herbs.  White wine and butter go especially well together.
   

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1. 3. Perfect scrambled eggs
   

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Butter is perfect for scrambled eggs, although I love to use coconut oil too.  The trick is to keep the heat low.  I made these perfect scrambled eggs for brunch recently, with pillowy curds and moist texture.  Eat them plain or try something simple.  Variation 1: melt some goat cheese over them when you take them out of the pan, and then add freshly-chopped tomatoes, your favorite fresh herb, and black pepper.  Variation 2: (above) add chunks of a mild, firm cheese like goat gouda or manchego, some fresh herbs, and black pepper.

1. 4. I’m melting, I’m melting
   

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1. Where can’t you use melted butter?  Dip artichoke leaves into it, pour it over asparagus, pour it on your baked sweet potatoes, use it on fish... you can come up with ideas faster than it takes for butter to melt.
   

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5. 5. Baking
   

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8. I’m sorry, but why would you bake with rancid, processed vegetable oil or hideous, poisonous margarine when you could use butter?  I don’t recommend eating a lot of baked goods, but when you do, eat ones made with real ingredients like butter and eggs.  Butter gives an unparalleled flavor to baked goods, not to mention a perfect crumb and texture.  Butter and vanilla were meant for one another, and butter enhances nuts, fruits, and chocolate in baked goods.  Butter makes the perfect crust for pies or quiche, and don’t forget to add chunks of butter to your pie or quiche filling either.
   

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12. 6. Butter with fresh herbs
    

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15. Do not try this with dried herbs.  Mix together butter with fresh, aromatic herbs like parsley, rosemary, basil, chives, oregano, or thyme.  Use on fish, eat straight, or eat on fresh sourdough bread.  You can mix it fully, like this picture shows, or you can just sprinkle it on the butter before you eat it.
    

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19. 7. Indian food/ghee
    

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22. Ghee, or clarified butter, is traditional in Indian and other South Asian cuisines.  It’s a concentrated form of butter fat, and has a much higher smoke point than butter.  Cook traditional South Asian dishes in ghee, although ghee is not just for Indian food, and is also great for scrambling eggs or sautéing anything.  A tip: fry whole spices such as cumin seed or fenugreek in ghee as the first step of preparing a strongly-spiced dish, or to add into yogurt and cucumber to make raita.
    

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26. 8. Simple sauce of shallots, butter and wine
    

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This simple sauce is great over fish, vegetables, chicken, or most savory foods.  Heat a little butter in a pan.  Add chopped shallots and cook over medium heat until the shallots are translucent.  Pour in a little less than a cup of white wine, add a dash of salt, and turn the flame to medium-low.  Let it cook a minute or two.  Add some large pieces of butter.  Turn off the heat and let the butter melt.  Stir.  Taste, adjust flavors, and serve when it tastes right to you.

9. Lemon butter

I think for our entire childhood, my brother wouldn’t touch fish without lemon butter.  It’s probably the only thing he knew how to make (possibly still).  He’s a creature of habit, sure, but lemon butter is simple and delicious.  The ingredients are (get those pens ready): lemon and butter.  Melt butter.  Add lemon juice.  You’re done.  You can vary it up for sure: add some lemon zest or fresh herbs or sautéed garlic.  Lemon butter is great on fish, quinoa or vegetables,

10. Finishing touch

Butter makes a perfect finishing touch to virtually any thick, liquidy or creamy meal.  Making a curry, a soup, a stew, beans, or a sauce?  Stir in some butter at the very end and let it melt.  Your body and your mouth will thank you.

What are your favorite uses for butter? Share in the comments!

Thanks to seanmcgrath, dipfan, yoppy, jonny.hunter, michaelwhays,  ms.tea for flickr Creative Commons photos.  The shallot picture is from Wikimedia Commons, the butter pictures, eggs, tart, sautéed onions and black eyed peas are mine.