Nature’s Golden Cooking Fat
Ghee has been used for thousands of years in Ayurveda and Indian cooking. Today, modern nutrition is finally catching up with what Ayurveda has known all along.
When I first discovered ghee, I wasn't looking for the latest superfood.
I was looking for something I could cook with.
I loved butter.
Butter didn't particularly love me back.
And as I started looking more closely at the foods I was eating and, importantly, the fats I was cooking with every day, I discovered ghee.
For me, making that change became part of a much bigger health journey. I noticed a real difference, particularly with the brain fog and inflammation I'd been struggling with.
That's my experience, not a promise about what ghee will do for you.
But it certainly made me curious.
Why had this beautifully simple cooking fat been used for thousands of years? What was actually in it? And what does modern nutritional research tell us about the health benefits of ghee?
Turns out, there's quite a lot to talk about.
What Makes Ghee So Special?
Proper ghee starts with butter.
We slowly simmer ours until the water evaporates and the milk solids separate from the butterfat.
Then we meticulously remove those milk solids, leaving behind that beautiful golden cooking fat we know as ghee.
You’ll sometimes hear ghee described as clarified butter, but while they’re close cousins, they're not quite the same thing.
Ghee is cooked for longer, allowing the milk solids to gently caramelise before we remove them. That's where good ghee gets its beautiful golden colour and rich, slightly nutty flavour.
And one of the best things about ghee is what we take out.
By removing the milk solids, ghee is naturally lactose, casein and whey free.
But what goes into the pot matters just as much as what we take out.
At OMGhee, we start with Australian Certified Organic, grass-fed butter and slowly simmer our ghee for around seven hours.
Because not all ghees are created equal.
If you're going to talk about the nutritional benefits of ghee, I think you also need to talk about the quality of the butter it came from.
Healthy Fats That Actually Nourish
For a long time, fat was simply something we were told to avoid.
Thankfully, the conversation around dietary fat has become a lot more nuanced.
Our bodies need fat. Among other things, dietary fat helps us absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.
Grass-fed dairy also contains naturally occurring fatty acids including CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) and omega fatty acids.
CLA has been studied for its potential role in areas including metabolism, healthy weight management and immune function.
Ghee is also a source of vitamin A, an important fat-soluble vitamin involved in functions including normal vision and immune health.
Does that mean more ghee is automatically better?
Of course not.
But if you're already putting cooking fat in the pan every day, I think it's worth asking what you're cooking with, how it was made and what it brings to the table.
That's a big part of what Make the Healthy Switch means to me.
It's not about chasing miracle foods.
It's about making better everyday choices.
Ghee, Digestive Health and Butyric Acid
This is one of the most interesting areas when we start looking at the health benefits of ghee.
Ghee contains butyric acid, or butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid that plays an important role in the digestive system.
Butyrate is used as an energy source by cells lining the colon and has been extensively studied for its relationship with gut health, the intestinal barrier and inflammatory processes within the digestive system.
And this is where the ancient story gets interesting too.
Ghee has been valued for thousands of years in Ayurveda, including in relation to digestion.
I'm always fascinated when something used traditionally for generations starts attracting the attention of modern researchers for some of the very same reasons.
That's not proof that every traditional belief is correct.
But it's certainly worth paying attention to.
Immune System Support
Ghee's vitamin A and fatty acid content also makes immune health part of the conversation.
Vitamin A plays an established role in normal immune system function and in maintaining healthy skin and mucous membranes.
Grass-fed ghee also contains CLA, which has been researched for its potential relationship with immune function.
Again, I don't think we need to turn a jar of ghee into a bottle of supplements.
It's food.
Really good food, in my opinion.
But choosing nutrient-containing whole foods and cooking fats is one of the small decisions we make over and over again.
And those everyday decisions matter.
Ghee, Brain Health and Mental Clarity
This one is particularly personal for me.
Brain fog was one of the things I noticed improving when I changed the way I was eating and the fats I was consuming.
I can't tell you that ghee was solely responsible for that.
Nor would I.
I changed more than one thing, and my experience is exactly that, my experience.
But it was significant enough to make me interested in the relationship between dietary fats and the brain.
The brain is extraordinarily rich in fat, and fatty acids play important structural and functional roles within it. Omega fatty acids, in particular, have been extensively studied in relation to brain and cognitive health.
So when we talk about the potential health benefits of grass-fed ghee, brain health deserves to be part of the broader conversation.
For me, it also serves as a reminder that fat isn't automatically something to fear.
The type, quality and source of the fats we eat matter.
Naturally Lactose, Casein and Whey Free
This is another part of the OMGhee story that's very close to home.
I loved butter, but I didn't tolerate it particularly well.
Ghee gave me another option.
When we make OMGhee, we slowly cook the butter and meticulously remove the milk solids.
As a result, ghee is naturally lactose, casein and whey free.
You still get that gorgeous buttery richness, without those milk components.
That's one of the reasons we hear from customers who don't tolerate ordinary butter but happily use OMGhee.
And you don't have to save it for curry night.
Use it for your eggs.
Cook your steak in it.
Roast your vegetables.
Make fried rice.
Cook pancakes.
Bake with it.
Pour it over popcorn.
Sweet or savoury, it's a kitchen all-rounder.
Ghee and Inflammation
Inflammation is another reason I originally became interested in changing what I was eating.
Again, I'm careful about how I talk about this because my experience isn't medical advice.
But I did notice a difference in the inflammation I was experiencing when I changed my diet and the fats I was consuming.
That made me want to understand more.
Some of the naturally occurring fatty acids found in grass-fed dairy, including CLA and butyric acid, have been studied in relation to inflammatory processes.
Butyrate is particularly interesting because of its role within the gut, while the broader relationship between dietary fatty acids and inflammation continues to be an active area of nutritional research.
I'm not going to tell you that a spoonful of ghee “fights inflammation”.
Bodies are far more complicated than that.
What I will tell you is that changing the quality of the food and fats I was eating made a meaningful difference to me.
And that experience is one of the reasons OMGhee exists today.
Supporting Healthy Weight Management
Fat and weight management is another area where the old “eating fat makes you fat” message has thankfully become more nuanced.
Dietary fat contributes to satiety, which is simply that feeling of satisfaction and fullness after eating.
Grass-fed dairy also contains CLA, which has been studied for its potential relationship with metabolism and healthy weight management.
That doesn't make ghee a weight-loss product.
It isn't.
It's a cooking fat.
But I think there's a much more useful conversation to have about eating satisfying, minimally processed food than simply trying to remove every gram of fat from our diets.
For me, Make the Healthy Switch isn't about restriction.
It's about looking at the things you're already eating and asking whether there's a better-quality choice.
A Healthy Alternative to Processed Seed Oils
And this brings us back to the kitchen.
Because ultimately, that's where OMGhee belongs.
Many modern vegetable and seed oils undergo multiple stages of refining and processing before they arrive on the supermarket shelf.
Some processed vegetable oils can contain trans fats, particularly partially hydrogenated oils.
Compare that with how we make OMGhee.
Australian Certified Organic, grass-fed butter.
Heat.
Time.
Around seven hours of slow cooking.
Then we meticulously remove the milk solids.
That's it.
If you're trying to reduce the amount of heavily processed food in your kitchen, grass-fed ghee can be a healthy alternative to processed seed oils.
That doesn't mean every other cooking fat needs to go in the bin.
You'll always find a good extra virgin olive oil in our kitchen.
I want OMGhee sitting right next to it.
Different fats have different jobs.
When I want beautiful buttery flavour, high-heat cooking and something that works across practically everything I cook, I reach for ghee.
Make the Healthy Switch to OMGhee
Not all ghees are created equal.
I know we say it a lot.
But we say it because it matters.
Ghee is concentrated butterfat, so the quality of the butter you start with matters enormously.
We make OMGhee right here in Australia from Australian Certified Organic, grass-fed butter.
And the word Certified matters.
Anyone can put words like organic, grass-fed and premium on a label.
Certification means someone has actually checked.
Then there's how we make it.
We slowly simmer our ghee for around seven hours, meticulously removing the milk solids and allowing time to create that rich, nutty flavour and gorgeous golden colour.
No shortcuts.
Just really good ingredients and time.
OMGhee began because I wanted to change what I was putting into my own body and my family's food.
Years later, that's still at the heart of what we do.
I'm not here to tell you ghee is a miracle cure.
I'm here to tell you that what we cook with every day matters.
For me, making the healthy switch made a real difference.
And if you're already reaching for something to put in the frying pan, roast your potatoes, cook your eggs, bake a cake or make your popcorn...
I think it may as well be something really good.
Make the Healthy Switch.
One jar. A whole lot of cooking.
