Butter is one of the healthiest fats on the planet.
It’s not just a big pile of yellow-colored fat, there are many important nutrients in there, some of which have potent biological effects.
Butter From Grass-Fed Cows is a Major Source of Heart-Healthy Nutrients
Butterfat is highly complex. It contains about 400 different fatty acids, and a decent amount of fat-soluble vitamins.
Fatty acids are actually more than just energy sources, some of them have potent biological activity.
As it turns out, many of the fatty acids in butter can affect our physiology and biochemistry in some way, leading to major health benefits.
Grass-fed butter contains 5 times more CLA than butter from grain-fed cows.
Butter Contains Saturated Fat, But Who Cares?
Butter used to be considered unhealthy, because it contains saturated fat.However, this is actually not a valid argument against butter, because the saturated fat myth has been thoroughly debunked in recent years.
Two massive review studies were published recently, one in 2010 and the other in 2014. Both included hundreds of thousands of people.
Studies Show That People Who Eat Grass-Fed Butter Have a Lower Risk of Heart Disease
The relationship between full-fat dairy consumption and heart disease seems to depend on the country in which the study is performed.An impressive study on this was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, in the year 2010:
This study looked at the levels of CLA in the fat tissue of 1813 non-fatal heart attack patients, and compared them to 1813 similar subjects who had not gotten heart attacks.
Levels of this fatty acid are a very reliable marker for the intake of fatty dairy products, and this study was done in Costa Rica, where cows are grass-fed.
They split the subjects into 5 groups, from lowest to highest, depending on their levels of CLA. The results were fairly remarkable:
However, keep in mind that this was a case-control study, a type of observational study. These types of studies can not prove causation.
Many Other Studies Have Shown Similar Results
This is far from being the only study.Another study from Australia showed that people who ate the most full-fat dairy had a 69% lower risk of heart disease than people who ate the least.