Butter is Not Just Better, It’s Essential To Modern Human Health

Unless you eat like a hunter-gatherer, grass-fed butterfat is an irreplaceable part of a healthy diet, argues the Weston A. Price Foundation. Studies show it protects against heart disease, cancer and bone disease.

 Photo by Taylor Kiser on Unsplash

Unless you eat organ meats, fish eggs, bugs or blubber — items most civilized people find repulsive — you are missing out on essential nutrients that can be found only in grass-fed butterfat, argues the “politically incorrect” nutrition organization, the Weston A. Price Foundation.

But butter has been worshiped for its life-sustaining, health-promoting properties for millennia, she argues.
“When Dr. Weston Price studied native diets in the 1930’s he found that butter was a staple in the diets of many supremely healthy peoples,” Fallon writes.

“Isolated Swiss villagers placed a bowl of butter on their church altars, set a wick in it, and let it burn throughout the year as a sign of divinity in the butter. Arab groups also put a high value on butter, especially deep yellow-orange butter from livestock feeding on green grass in the spring and fall. American folk wisdom recognized that children raised on butter were robust and sturdy; but that children given skim milk during their growing years were pale and thin, with ‘pinched’ faces.”

Heart disease was rare in America at the turn of the 20th century, Fallon notes, but between 1920 and 1960, it became America’s number one killer.During the same period, butter consumption plummeted from 18 pounds per person per year to four.

“It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in statistics to conclude that butter is not a cause,” Fallon writes.

In 2015, American butter consumption reached a 40-year-high of 5 pounds per person per year, Fallon noted. New Zealanders consumed 24 pounds!

Meanwhile, only 1 in 20 adults in New Zealand has heart disease, compared to 1 in 4 Americans.

That means New Zealanders consume 5 times as much butter as Americans and have a fifth of the heart disease.

This is because grass-fed butter has nutrients that protect against heart disease and other diseases, Fallon says.

Protects Against Heart Disease

Vitamin A – Vitamin A  is needed for the health of the thyroid and adrenal glands, both of which play a role in maintaining the proper functioning of the heart and cardiovascular system.

Heart abnormalities and larger blood vessels occur in babies born to vitamin A deficient mothers.

“Butter is America’s best and most easily absorbed source of vitamin A,” Fallon says.

Lecithin – Lecithin assists in the proper assimilation and metabolism of cholesterol and other fat constituents.

Antioxidants – Butter also contains a number of anti-oxidants that protect against the kind of free radical damage that weakens the arteries.

Vitamin A and vitamin E found in butter both play a strong anti-oxidant role.

Butter is also very rich source of selenium, a vital anti-oxidant–containing more per gram than herring or wheat germ.

Cholesterol – Butter is a great dietary source of cholesterol, which — surprise — is actually a powerful antioxidant that floods into the blood when we take in too many harmful free-radicals, such the damaged, rancid fats in margarine and highly processed vegetable oils, Fallon says, citing a 1984 study.

Protects Against Cancer

In the 1940’s researchers blamed saturated fats for cancer. They neglected to mention the “saturated” fat they used in their experiments was partially hydrogenated, the kind found in margarine.

“So butter was tarred with the black brush of the fabricated fats, and in such a way that the villains got passed off as heroes,” Fallon says.

Actually, many of the naturally saturated fats in butter have strong anti-cancer properties.

Butter is rich in short and medium fatty acid chains that have strong anti-tumor effects, according to a 1986 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Butter also contains conjugated linoleic acid, which provides excellent protection against cancer, according to a 1995 study published in Nutrition Reviews.

Protects Bones and Joints

The Wulzen or “anti-stiffness” factor is a nutrient unique to butter. Dutch researcher Wulzen found that it protects against calcification of the joints–degenerative arthritis–as well as hardening of the arteries. Unfortunately this vital substance is destroyed during pasteurization.

Vitamins A and D in butter are essential to the proper absorption of calcium and hence necessary for strong bones and teeth.

The plague of osteoporosis in milk-drinking western nations may be due to the fact that most people choose skim milk over whole.

Ethnic groups that do not use butter obtain the same nutrients from things like insects, organ meats, fish eggs and the fat of marine animals, food items most modern people find repulsive, Fallon says.

“For Americans–who do not eat bugs or blubber–butter is not just better, it is essential.”

For more politically incorrect nutrition info, check out Fallon’s book Nourishing Fats: Why We Need Animal Fats for Health and Happiness: