Ghee is the crown jewel that joins Ayurvedic medicine and Indian cooking.

A delicate, aromatic substance that is solid at room temperature and melts into a liquid as it warms, ghee is made by boiling off the milk solids from unsalted butter—leaving only the golden oil behind.

This oil can be used for cooking, and its very high flashpoint of 485 degrees Fahrenheit makes it one of the best oils to safely cook with. But in true Ayurvedic tradition, you can also successfully use it as a massage oil, a carrier for ingesting herbs, and a soothing balm for the eyes, among other uses.

Ingesting ghee, whether in a culinary context or as a carrier for the nutrients in herbs, serves to lubricate the intestinal tract and all the tissues inside the body.

During an Ayurvedic cleanse, it is used as the preferred vehicle for oleation, a process of ingesting increasing amounts of oil over a series of mornings. This actually helps pull fat soluble toxins (the stubborn ones—water soluble toxins usually flush out with our urine) out of the cells and triggers fat metabolism: a process whereby the body begins to burn its own fat for fuel.

And why does the intestinal tract love ghee so much? Because it makes its own, of course!

Seriously, recent research has attested to the fact that the beneficial microbes in the gut actually make butyric acid, the active ingredient in butter—and even more concentrated in ghee—that supports immunity and protects the integrity of the lining of the gut wall.

So eating ghee doesn’t only make for happy taste buds; it also makes happy beneficial bacteria in your precious gut—the site of digestion and nutrient assimilation, the production of many mood-regulating neurotransmitters, and the maintenance of strong immunity.

According to Ayurveda, digestion is everything, so feed your digestive tract the food of the gods—beautiful, luminescent, golden ghee.

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>> Learn more about ghee here.

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Author: Dr. John Douillard
Image: Author’s Own
Editor: Leah Sugerman
Copy Editor: Nicole Cameron
Social Editor: Sara Kärpänen