One of the common questions we get asked is “can ghee be eaten by those wanting a lactose free butter alternative?”
The short answer is yes! People with dairy intolerances tolerate ghee very well. However, if you are highly allergic, the answer is probably still yes, but proceed with caution.
I'll explain.
Ghee has many health benefits and being lactose free is just one of them.
Transforming boring butter into the magical goodness of ghee requires a slow and consistent cook. During the process all of the milk solids rise to the surface. Once risen they then slowly begin to drop to the bottom of the pan to sit and become toasty brown, infusing the rest of the ghee and producing a gorgeous taste of caramelised, shortbread'ish toffee taste.
Once the cook is finished the ghee is then meticulously strained serveral times through filters to remove all of the milk solids.
The milk solids are the lactose, casein and whey.
The hurdle we have with saying ghee is 100% lactose free is despite meticulously and precisely filtering the ghee, multiple times, to ensure each and every jar of OMGhee is lactose free, each jar would need to be put through a laboratory test.
EVERY jar.
As you can imagine, this would make the production of small batch handcrafted ghee guaranteed to be 100% lactose free unviable.
So, for your sake (and ours!) if you are highly allergic to lactose we recommended you proceed with caution.
We have found many lactose intolerant people use ghee as a butter replacement in their home; using it freely on a consistent and daily basis. They use it as a spread and cook with it as a total butter replacement, successfully experiencing the benefits of ghee without any negative side effects at all.
Buying Lactose Free Ghee - A word of Warning.
If you are genuinely seeking 100% ‘lactose free’ ghee then you would be wise to avoid ghee produced and sold as clarified butter or butter oil. Another trick is to sell AMF (Anhydrous Milk Fat) as ghee.
Because the raw ingredient of ghee, butter, is very expensive, some ghee is even adulterated with other oil to be able to provide a cheaper, and inferior product.
What do you do with the ghee waste?
If you're interested in what the waste looks like and what we do with the ghee waste - stay tuned.
