What you need to know: Ghee is an important healing food in ayurvedic tradition. Essentially a type of clarified butter, ghee is gaining popularity with many wellness advocates for it’s rich nutritional properties. The butter clarification process removes moisture, milk solids and impurities, leaving a rich, nutrient-dense fat. Ghee is composed of a full spectrum of short-, medium- and long-chain fatty acids, both unsaturated and saturated. It also contains vitamins A, D, E and K, and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). CLA is a compound known to increase metabolic rate, enhance muscle growth and decrease abdominal fat.

Why you should try it: Ghee is the foundation for a myriad of healing tonics and foods in ayurvedic medicine, believed to offer the body the perfect fuel for health. It stimulates digestive functioning, helps to build aura, and feeds the organs. Ghee is used to increase ojas, the essential energy of the body, which can be equated with the “fluid of life.” By strengthening ojas, one prevents aging, strengthens immunity and promotes longevity. In ayurvedic medicine, ghee is also thought to increase and refine intelligence and to improve the memory. It is commonly utilized to cleanse the body, helping to dissolve ama (toxins) deep within the tissues, allowing them to be carried out and eliminated from the body. Ghee also promotes strength by normalizing the blood and lymph, and is beneficial for the eyes, hair and skin.

Let’s get together: Ghee can be used just like butter, and tastes incredible on foods such as toast, gluten-free muffins, or sweet potatoes, or as an addition to warm drinks like coffee or tea. It can also be used for cooking. In ayurvedic tradition ghee is used to extract healing properties from herbs and spices. When heated with herbs and spices, the ghee takes on their properties, and infuses them throughout the food. This makes the food especially healing and nourishing. Make sure to purchase only organic ghee, since its non-organic alternatives can be quite toxic. Our favorite is by Ancient Organics. They not only use organic, churned cream butter (this is critical to making authentic ghee), but they make it in small batches over an open flame, only during a full or waxing moon (amplifying its healing qualities).