Grass-Fed Cows = Real Butter = Anchor Butter

A specific example of a grass-fed product that I use during in-home cooking lessons in New York and in my own kitchen is Anchor Butter.

Anchor is made in New Zealand, where cows are grass-fed and law prohibits the use of hormones in dairy, sheep and beef farming.

When I hold Anchor Butter next to a stick of commercial butter for my students, they are amazed at the difference in color. Anchor is yellow (because of the grass the cows are eating), compared to the white butter derived from the milk of corn-fed cows. Even organic butters shade toward white since the cows are still eating corn (albeit without pesticides).

The myth (yes, MYTH) which states that butter is bad for you is based on unsound assumptions and studies, the same ones that classify all fatty foods as dangerous. (Gary Taubes, in his book, “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” does a masterful job of showing how many supposed nutritional and dietary truths are merely unproven statements that have morphed into accepted gospel.)

A story-starved media and clever marketers have so inculcated us with these myths that we have blindly accepted the false preaching and are left eating incomplete, flavorless and nutritionally-unsound foods like egg white omelets, lite mayonnaise and skinless chicken breasts. Whoever your god is, don’t you think it would have made eggs without the yolks if we were supposed to eat egg white omelets? The egg--with the yolk--is as close to the perfect, most complete food that exists.

Back to Anchor Butter. Yes, butter is terrible for you . . . if you are eating butter made from milk from cows eating a corn-based diet and shot up with hormones and antibiotics. If you are eating butter from grass-fed cows, you are providing yourself with a wealth of vitamins (especially A), minerals (selenium, an antioxidant), healthy fatty acids (CLA and omega-3’s) and cholesterol (essential for the composition of our cell membranes).

Did I mention how much better Anchor tastes than conventional butters? The flavor is much deeper and the texture is much creamier.

Anchor butter is available at the Fairway stores in New York. Other butters made in Europe--where cows grazing on grass is the norm--include President, Kerrygold, and Lescure. These can be found in progressive food stores and local supermarkets.