Butter and Health

The article below has been written, at my request, by my good friend Peter Hinde from Manchester England. It is an excellent testimonial on the value of good quality animal fats. I first met Peter in 1999 when he attended a six week Body Electronics Instructors Seminar held in Australia. Peter has since sponsored me for seminars in Manchester (July 2002 and March 2003). Peter is not only extremely knowledgeable in areas of nutrition but also has extensive training and experience and "practices what he preaches"-- the addition of large amounts of butter as noted below (about 500 grams or more than one pound per week). In addition Peter had consumed large amounts of beta-carotene etc., from yellow/orange vegetables and fruits for years. Many thanks peter for taking the time to write this article and to share it with us.
Cheers - Doug [Morrison]

Butter and Health

Doug Morrison has asked me to write something about how butter has affected my health over the past few months. For those of you not familiar with the findings of Dr. Weston Price in the early 20th Century here's a short summary: He studied long lived peoples that were known for their incredible level of health and almost complete absence of dental decay (Price's interest was as a dentist). Each group ate locally available food which varied from the others since the groups ranged from the Scottish Islands to Equatorial Africa and groups living by the sea to groups living in mountainous regions. Although the diet and climates were different Price noted several common factors:

1. They placed an emphasis on fermentation of food which not only gives a good source of beneficial bacteria but also pre-digests the food and eradicates some powerful anti-nutrients in the food.
2. They ate very little sugar, even as fruit.
3. They all ate large amounts of animal fat whether in the form of fish, eggs or dairy foods. This gave them loads of vitamins A & D and other factors.
4. They all ate some of their animal proteins raw.
5. They ate locally produced, seasonally available food, and probably had done for many generations.

I was first exposed to Weston Price's work in 1992 when I was told the book was out of print, and the nutrition course I was doing emphasized that most people could not cope with animal foods and that too much saturated fat was a bad idea (they followed Udo Erasmus, Gerson, Budwig etc.), although they recognized that somehow it worked for these very healthy people in Price's book. The next time I heard of Price's work was on Doug Morrison's Body Electronics Instructors Course in 1999, and as a result I started eating butter (though not in place of margarine as I hadn't touched that in 9 years). I suppose I ate maybe a pack a month, maybe less. At this point I still had not read Price's book. It was only when Doug came to lecture in Manchester in summer 2002 that I decided to go more the Weston Price way with my own diet and the book was back in print although only available directly from the Price Pottenger Foundation in the States. I experimented with eating more butter and increased it to the level that my taste desired. I watched a few shocked faces. One person exclaimed unknowingly about what I had on my (sourdough, homemade) bread "That's a lot of cheese!". It wasn't cheese. I was eating around 2 packs (i.e. 500g) per week and Greek yogurt and raw cream when available.((DOUG'S NOTE: this is more than a pound per week)) The butter unfortunately was from organic pasteurized milk as I had no idea where to get butter from raw milk. The initial reaction from my body was to throw off some damaged fats (at least I had "disrupted" bowels, lots of smelly gas and the toilet smelled of stir-fry which I hadn't eaten in a long time).

After this my digestion produced less gas. Within a couple of weeks I noticed I was putting on weight. Not fat, but muscle. I had always been underweight and due to eating a lot of raw vegetable foods as a staple, my weight was down around 9 stone 2lb'ish (the scales were pretty inaccurate but this is my closest guess). ((DOUG'S NOTE: this is about 128 lbs or about 58 kg)) Within a couple of months I had hit 10 stone ((DOUG'S NOTE: 140 lbs or about 64 kgs)) and people were remarking how healthy I looked even if they didn't know what I was doing. This was as heavy as I was when I did weight training 3 times a week at university, but I hadn't increased my level of exercise. About at this point I noticed another change. Some wicked person fed me ice cream. I was amazed to find that the sensitivity to cold in my teeth had almost vanished, and I figured immediately that it was the butter since Price-Pottenger talked about removal of dental decay when the body re-mineralizes due to the extra vitamin D. Before I forget, I should mention that the only vitamin I took was some vitamin D3 during winter to possibly offset, as I thought, the lack due to the effects of our low light levels. The next thing I noticed was when the autumn came and I drove at night. I could see the side of the road much better especially when car headlights were coming the other way. I had never considered that I had any degree of night-blindness until I had less of it. I quickly figured that again what Price-Pottenger were saying was correct: We can't synthesize all the vitamin A we need from carotenes (my diet was loaded with these), we need it from animal fat. My weight 148-150 lbs or about 68 kgs -- thus a total gain of about 20 lbs or over 9 kgs)) scales in the middle but I know the weight gain to be accurate and the weight kept increasing - mostly muscle, probably bone density and maybe fat around organs, although not noticeably any fat on the outside. I burst the buttons on several pairs of 30 inch waist trousers and others that had been tighter I could not even get over my thighs. I stabilized at around 10 stone 8-10lb (I had changed and these under weighed whereas the others over-weighed, pounds) (DOUG'S NOTE: stable) In winter I was warmer and needed less clothes on outside, never getting that "chilled to the bone" feeling - I guess this is the same reason as the less sensitive teeth. At this time a tooth that was eroded at the gum-line and sensitive to pressure on chewing (i.e., heading towards needing a filling, which would be my first) stopped being sensitive (erosion is still present, but Price would suggest that this can fill in).

Note that many people are saying that we need higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids to stay warm in winter at these latitudes (I'm in England) which is what I had been taking and hadn't worked for me. My energy was higher and for the first time in many years I felt more "normal" in winter rather than feeling somehow less vibrant than summer and somehow less "here".

I wondered about Rudolf Steiner's statement that calcium was the mineral that helped us incarnate more fully. Less shockable people were shocked by me eating cheese sandwiches without the bread, but almost as thick. Recently my body is not craving as much. I guess the light levels are much higher now and I am not putting on weight any more, so presumably any gross deficiencies are largely rectified. . As I told other people what had happened to me, some tried increasing their butter and others kept to the belief "but too much saturated fat isn't good". I guess that it would not have been any good for me either several years before as all I needed since being a child was a certain amount of saturated fat, especially as cream, and I would go extremely dizzy for hours. This problem had gone back 3 generations as far as I know. It took a lot of cleansing and working on emotions for 9 years to get to the point where if I ate cream I had no reaction. I can only guess at what factor increased my muscle mass by eating fat. Possibly it was just getting some nutrients I needed, possibly butyric acid in the butter feeding the cells of the intestinal wall (it is a natural fuel source for them) so improving digestion and absorption of food? One or two people that I know who did try increasing their butter intake also increased their muscle mass without getting "fat" or doing any extra exercise, though this does not mean it will work for everyone.

Most of the people advocating veganism happen to live in hot sunny climates, but as Price-Pottenger puts out - even races at the Equator have died out after several generations of trying to be vegan. If you still want to be vegan, just watch the state of your teeth - these are your early warning signs that you haven't far to go before more serious diseases come. If you havn't got a copy of Weston Price's Book it is "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration", and I would strongly recommend Doug's recommendation

Note that fat does not create fat in the body, carbohydrate does, and some people are puzzled when they eat fat and think it's the fat that made them fat - I might guess that they didn't reduce their carbohydrate enough, so it was just kind of knocking around spare. For those that are reacting to the tiny amount of milk protein or lactose in the butter, there is always the possibility to make ghee or buy goat's butter. For those that cannot digest the fat there is always lecithin and extra lipase. Be warned vegans!

Peter Hinde