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Comparison of ghee and raw butter oil and whether one is significantly more healthful than the other for dietary and therapeutic purposes.
For those who choose to follow an ancestrally inspired diet, getting sufficient amounts of Vitamin K2Â is very important. Without exception, all vibrantly healthy people groups following their various traditional diets across the globe consumed high levels of this elusive nutrient.
Yet, nearly everyone today is deficient, most severely so. Following an organic, whole foods diet is no guarantee you are getting enough either, so beware!
To complicate matters further, very few foods are high in K2 – especially the more potent form known as MK-4. And, nearly all of the ones that do contain it are falsely demonized by politically correct nutritional guidelines. Butter oil and ghee are two of these foods that can be quite confusing.
Butter oil vs Ghee
When seeking a good source of the fat-soluble Vitamin K2, two of the most readily accessible foods high in this nutrient are butter oil and ghee. Organ meats also contain high amounts, but sadly, consuming them has really not caught on with most people yet.
By comparison, most people are quite open to eating butter these days. Butter sales are on a huge upswing as is full-fat dairy in general. Recent studies consistently point to its benefits, such as the Harvard study suggesting that women with ovulatory disorder who eat full-fat dairy increase their odds of conception. (1)
In my neck of the woods, I am happy to report that the full-fat yogurt offerings in the supermarket are now equal to or larger than the low to no fat selections. This is the first time I’ve seen this in my lifetime! Even just a couple of years ago, I could not find ANY full-fat yogurt in regular grocery stores. Everything was no fat or low-fat.
People are clearly getting the message that saturated fat and cholesterol are healthy – not the heart attack causing substances we were led to believe. The data on these nutrients was wrong (or purposely skewed?), as research frequently is that benefits highly profitable factory foods like margarine.
Of course, anyone with a lick of common sense could see through the ruse. Note the numerous healthy, chronic disease-free traditional societies that revered foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol! (2)
This trend leads us right into a discussion of why butter oil and ghee are so well accepted as reliable sources of Vitamin K2 – the nutrient that lowers your chances of getting ill with pretty much anything. Some research suggests it will even reverse heart disease by unclogging the arteries! (3)
Both of these K2 sources come from butter, but is one any better than the other?
Making Ghee from Butter
In a nutshell, ghee is simply butter that has had all the proteins removed. Accomplishing this requires heating the butter so that the proteins can be easily and thoroughly skimmed off.
Eliminating the small amount of protein from butter accomplishes two things.
First, it renders the butter extremely shelf-stable. I keep a large jar of ghee right by the stove in our home all the time. I never refrigerate it, and it never goes rancid. My son has a small jar of grassfed ghee that he keeps at the chef station in his college dining hall. The chef uses the ghee to cook his meals instead of the standard bottle of canola oil. The jar of ghee sits there all semester until it is up without any freshness issues.
Secondly, ghee has a much higher smoke point than plain butter. So, it works well for cooking and won’t burn like butter can.
As a bonus, most people with a dairy allergy tend to tolerate ghee very well. This is because it is the milk proteins or lactose that usually cause the reaction. Both of these are virtually nonexistent in ghee.
Ghee can be made from either good or poor quality butter. Hence, it makes sense to buy only grassfed ghee, or if you choose to make ghee at home on the stovetop, use only grassfed butter.
Note that you can also make grassfed ghee in the oven as a more convenient method.
This ensures that your ghee will be high in vitamin K2.
If you choose pale supermarket butter from grain-fed cows, the ghee you make won’t have much if any K2 content.
The Making of Butter Oil
You might initially think that butter oil and ghee are exactly the same things. After all, ghee melts at about 95°F/ 35°C, and when it does it looks exactly like …. butter oil!
It is true that butter oil and melted ghee look exactly the same. Visually, you cannot tell them apart. However, there is one big exception.
True butter oil comes from raw butter and is completely unheated.
To make butter oil, the proteins are separated from the raw butter via centrifuge instead of heat. This careful processing retains all of the enzymes and probiotics. As with ghee, the butter should come from grassfed cows, else the resulting butter oil will have little to no Vitamin K2.
To my knowledge, only one company produces grassfed butter oil currently in the world. It comes in plain or flavored butter oil varieties that you scoop out of a jar or capsules for convenience and travel.
Should You Use Ghee or Butter Oil (or Neither)?
Whether you choose to use grassfed ghee or butter oil as your source of the MK-4 form of Vitamin K2 is up to you. Butter oil can be pricey for some budgets, so if that is the case you may wish to use ghee.
Of course, if you plan to use it for cooking, it’s not worth it to buy butter oil. Cooking butter oil negates the value of the rawness.
The good news is that heat does not harm Vitamin K2. Hence, if you wish to use grassfed ghee for cooking, neither the processing of the ghee nor the cooking itself will reduce its benefits though the probiotics and enzymes are lost.
For traveling when you won’t have access to a kitchen, the convenience of the butter oil capsules can’t be beat.
Do you have a dairy allergy so severe that you cannot tolerate either butter oil or ghee? If so, try using emu oil instead (liquid or capsules).
Emu oil from birds on their natural diet is also extremely high in Vitamin K2 and works as an excellent substitute for either grassfed ghee or butter oil.
So.. it’s not recommended to take a cod liver oil unless you are also getting k2?
Not necessarily. Taking the K2 just allows better utilization of the A/D in the cod liver oil. A/D/K2 are synergistic nutrients that work better together than alone.
My 10 year old has a small hole in the next to back tooth but says the one behind it (in the very back) hurts when he eats tho I can’t see anything wrong with that one.. what would you suggest exactly so that his fear of the drill is not needed?
Remineralizing. make sure he is not eating a lot of refined flours, sugars, etc as the phytic acid binds to the minerals. lots of remineralizing toothpaste recipes out there. ANd i would think the protocol Sarah suggests here for vit a and k2 and d.
I was thinking for ‘organic India ‘ cow ghee for the purpose of consuming vitamin k2. Would it will be my right choice?
Does the content of vitamin k2 in grass fed butter oil and ghee would be the same or there would be any deviation?
Does the A2 cow ghee would have higher concentration of vitamin k2?
Ghee only contains vitamin K2 if the cows are primarily grazing on green grass. It doesn’t matter if they are A2 cows or not. The key is what are the cows eating. If it’s not green grass, there will be little to no K2 in the ghee.
Would you not recommend Aldi’s Ghee butter? I used Organic Valley’s but moved to far from any whole food type store. So I shop mostly Aldi’s and farmer’s markets.
Aldi is a supermarket brand, so no I would not recommend it as it would come from conventional GMO butter. No K2 in that!
Very informative Sarah, thanks for your time and attention.
Hi there actually the oil needs to be heated in either the butter oil, ghee or AMF process. Otherwise it cannot be pumped through the centrifuges. Usually the oils is pasteurised also to comply with food safety regulations. Butter oil and ghee are identical when produced in a modern factory. Traditional ghee manufacture is in open, heated pans where remaining water content can be evaporated and remaining proteins can be removed. It’s a long process that subjects the oil to a lot of heat which can add flavours not found in modern production.
The butter oil linked to in the article above is not heated … it is completely raw. This is the traditional definition of butter oil, by the way, as made and used by Dr. Price in his practice early in the last century.
That said, I do realize that some companies call their product “butter oil” when it is really ghee because it has been heated.
Wouldn’t butter have the same K2 content as ghee?
Ghee is much more concentrated than grassfed butter given that the proteins are removed, so ounce for ounce, it would contain more K2. Supermarket butter would contain virtually no K2.
Yet another FANTASTIC and informative post, Sarah! Thank you! I have just started the WAPF protocol within the last few weeks and I am already making Einkorn bread from my very own sourdough starter, drinking raw milk and eating raw cheese, eating only grassfed butter, clabbering my soured raw milk, and tending to water AND milk kefir! I’m addicted to this lifestyle! It just FEELS so good! I do have one question for you that I cannot seem to find the answer to: I am not necessarily gluten sensitive, but like the idea of both my son and myself only eating ancient grains. Here’s what I wonder: since I am long-fermenting ALL my homemade bread, do I HAVE to buy Einkorn??? What is I used organic whole wheat (unbleached, of course) flour and long-fermented it? Does the gluten break down during my long-ferment? I guess what I am wondering (in simple terms!) is: CAN I BUY LESS EXPENSIVE FLOUR(s) AND STILL BREAK DOWN THE GLUTEN AND MAKE SAID FLOUR(s) BETTER FOR US? Thanks in advance, Sarah! You are my muse!!!!
Congratulations on making the switch to traditional diet Tara! In answer to your question, you do not have to use einkorn. There are other ancient grains that are fine to use. Emmer, spelt, kamut are a few to consider. That said, einkorn is still the most easily digested gluten containing grain.
Great article! Can you recommend any brands of ghee besides the one you mentioned above? Thanks!
Sure. These two grassfed ghee brands are also excellent (I’ve tried them myself to be sure). https://amzn.to/2OEEtv3 and https://amzn.to/2PSCR0O
Hi, Sarah!
I’m planing on starting my two girls (7 and 3) and myself on Dropi cod liver oil. I want to use it for keeping our bones and teeth healthy since I lost a tooth due to an infection. I am almost 40 and I’m afraid I may lose some more. So, I was wondering if taking it with ghee would be a good alternative to taking it with butter oil since BO can be pricey. Or is it more beneficial to take it with butter oil?
Thanks for your help,
Olga!
Yes, you can absolutely use grassfed ghee instead of butter oil with your cod liver oil. Just be SURE the ghee is from grassfed cows. This brand is the best one out there. https://www.radiantlifecatalog.com/product/organic-grassfed-ghee/healthy-fats-oils/?a=58537