I'm just wondering since the milk solids get burned off during cooking the butter, isn't it the milk solids that make butter dairy?.

I just want to get this clarified because i plan to try to go off of dairy for a couple of weeks (even compliant) and i was thinking of making ghee but don't want to take a chance if it is truly dairy.

Thanks!
Mickey

I don't know the answer to your question but if ghee is so good for us why give it up?
Jane

Ghee comes from a cow so it will always be considered dairy! Butter doesn't look like butter, either, when it comes from the cow but it will always be considered dairy.

Essentially all the milk solids are clarified out and sink to the bottom.  What is left is pure butter oil.

However, no one can guarantee to you that there is not a trace of milk solid left, so it is a dairy product.  The oil comes from a dairy product, much in the way that olive oil comes from olives.  Olives may be an avoid for many people, while olive oil is beneficial.

Many people who are intolerant of dairy products are able to thrive on ghee, but it is your own body that must inform you.  It is your choice as to what your reasons are for avoiding dairy and what you want to achieve.  

I have to try ghee, I've been reading a lot about it here...does it taste like butter when used in frying?

Yes BTypeAUS I think you will love it. You can buy it from supermkt or make it from butter. http://www.dadamo.com/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-btdlf1/m-1100446907/s-0/


Great post Victoria!

In my swami ghee is classified under dairy.  I get very little dairy, but ghee is a superfood, along with buffalo milk, which I have not found for sale around here.  I probably use more ghee in a week than I'm supposed to, but I do very well on it, with no symptoms of dairy consumption that I get with cheese, i.e., congestion & weight gain.  So I think of it as dairy and not-dairy.  I cook eggs in it, so it's like an oil, but I will butter a rice cake with it, so it's like butter, too.

BTypeAUS, ghee does taste a like butter, but less sweet and even more buttery, but it doesn't burn as quickly, though it will burn if the heat is too high.

I loooove ghee.    It is a miracle superfood for me, and I hate to be without it.

I like it way better than butter.

However .. if a person is expecting that milky, creamy flavor, they will not get that.  Ghee is much lighter, more aromatic.  I would absolutely eat it by the spoonful if I weren't concerned about my cholesterol rising.  Even so, I exceed my SWAMI recommendation a little bit.

Supposedly, ghee can raise the cholesterol but only the HDL.  This is according to Ayurveda books.

Yum sounds good, I've seen it at Indian grocery stores ,,,will check it out, thanks

Quoted from BTypeAUS

Yum sounds good, I've seen it at Indian grocery stores ,,,will check it out, thanks

Make your own, it's easy.  

"Vegetarian Ghee" found in Indian grocery stores is not dairy.  Ratings for ghee in Genotype diet do not apply to "Vegetarian Ghee".  

I love ghee. It is so easy to make that a child could learn how. I buy organic butter, put a stick in a small pan and have the heat not quite halfway between medium and low. It sizzles and pops for a little while after it melts and almost the instant it gets quiet, it is ready. I like mine with a little "toasted" taste so I leave it until I see a very light shade of tan in the bottom of the pan - which means leaving it a very few seconds after it stops popping. I have a VERY fine strainer that I put it through into a small jar. Let it cool and store in my cabinet. I have had some to last six months, and the taste never changes!! Never store in the fridge because you do not want moisture to form in the jar. Never use a wet utensil to dip into the jar. I used to go to the trouble of straining mine through a coffee filter, but it isn't necessary. The strainer MUST be fine, though. I have read some horror stories about bought ghee, and the prices some people have paid!

Quoted from Victoria

Essentially all the milk solids are clarified out and sink to the bottom.  What is left is pure butter oil.

However, no one can guarantee to you that there is not a trace of milk solid left, so it is a dairy product.  The oil comes from a dairy product, much in the way that olive oil comes from olives.  Olives may be an avoid for many people, while olive oil is beneficial.

Many people who are intolerant of dairy products are able to thrive on ghee, but it is your own body that must inform you.  It is your choice as to what your reasons are for avoiding dairy and what you want to achieve.  

Well said.

Quoted from Spring

I love ghee.

Argh I wish I could agree. I tried it and cannot stand the taste or smell of ghee. And of course it's a superfood for me.
However, I do take butter oil caps. That I can tolerate

I think ghee is considered dairy because it's a good source of butyric acid, which is also found in cheese, milk, and other dairy products. If the only dairy you consume is ghee, you're still getting all the "good stuff" from milk that Dr D thinks we all need. You're "following SWAMI 100%" if you use ghee for all your dairy portions and eat no cheeses, milk, yogurt, or kefir.

There shouldn't be any dairy protiens or carbs in properly made ghee. Ghee is generally safe for "dairy free diets" if your concern is lactose intolerance or a reaction to milk protiens (such as congestion or emotional reactions.)

However, if you have an actual dairy allergy, the kind where you need to carry an epi-pen, ghee might not be a good idea. Even a trace of a trace of dairy protein could be fatal for some of these folks.

Quoted from C_sharp

"Vegetarian Ghee" found in Indian grocery stores is not dairy

Ghee is acceptable to vegetarians. Vegetarians will eat dairy, vegans will not. Did you mean vegan?  

Why go off something that is good for you?

Pretty much any food/drink that comes out of a teet is dairy, right?

Quoted from chrissyA

Ghee is acceptable to vegetarians. Vegetarians will eat dairy, vegans will not. Did you mean vegan?  

While Vegetarian Ghee would be suitable for vegans, I have never seen an Indian Grocery store sell a product with a label for "Vegan Ghee", but I see the term the terms "Vegetarian Ghee" and/or "vegetable ghee" nearly every time I go to an Indian Grocery.  The Indian terms for this type of ghee are vanaspati ghee or dalda ghee.

Whether a product is labeled "Vegetarian Ghee" or "Vegetable Ghee", it is what Americans call margarine. It is made form a variety of vegetable oils and often the oils are at least partially hydrogenated (to make it solid).


Sometimes Indian restaurants will use the term "vegan ghee" sometimes this is margarine and sometimes the restaurant uses dairy ghee.

So...  vegetarian/vegetable ghee would not be dairy, but ghee made from animal milk (butter) would not be vegan. I didn't know there were so many kinds of ghee, I thought it was a dairy product.  

But margarine is not going to give you the health benefits of true ghee, made from milk.

Quoted from Spring

The strainer MUST be fine, though.

i agree it's very easy to make.

if you don;t have a really fine strainer, use the finest one you can find and then line it with a few layers natural cheese cloth (soak with water first).

I also use the decanting method, where i pour off the good stuff through the strainer until i get to the solids / mixed with liquids. I pour that off through the strainer into a different container.

my hunny is allergic to casein and whey (quite strongly in fact - hives and boils) and he can use ghee without any problems.

Quoted Text

Why go off something that is good for you?

Good point Jane & Goldie!

I've decided that i'll just concentrate on going off of the avoid dairy like half-n-half for now.  

Quoted from 14922

Argh I wish I could agree. I tried it and cannot stand the taste or smell of ghee. And of course it's a superfood for me.
However, I do take butter oil caps. That I can tolerate

There's ghee and there's clarified butter. On a previous thread somewhere we explored the health benefits of both and both contain the all important butyric acid.

But- they taste different!
Both times the butter is melted and simmered, but ghee is cooked much longer and gets a more caramely taste, clarified butter is barely simmered and tastes much more like the original butter.
The texture will be different, but it's lovely over steamed veg and for frying eggs in.

So, will you give it another go?  

On the comment of Indian ghee, that was the first kind I got and I wasn't impressed. What I got was hard, even when not in the refrigerator, flavorless and milky in color. Make you own, it is easy, it will last several weeks well to be truthful several months. ( I do all four sticks, and divide into 4 small glass bowls with plastic lids, I put three in the refrigerator but not sure you really have to do that.) It has a nutty flavor.