Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Butter Up Your Veggies for the Best Nutrition and Taste!

Why butter? 
Contrary to popular opinion, butter is a healthy and nourishing food.  It is a great source of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K (referred to as Activator X by Weston Price).  In the article The Skinny on Fats, Mary Enig and Sally Fallon describe that butter is a great source of "true vitamin A or retinol, vitamin D, vitamin K and vitamin E as well as all their naturally occurring cofactors needed to obtain maximum effect...Vitamins A and D are essential for growth, for healthy bones, for proper development of the brain and nervous systems and for normal sexual development."

From savory dishes to baked goods, butter makes everything taste better! Vegetables are especially delicious with butter. Eating vegetables with plenty of fat ensures maximum assimilation of minerals and nutrients from the vegetables, so there is no reason to skip the butter.

Pair your butter with cod liver oil
We start every day with a dose of cod liver oil; Weston Price's research showed that cod liver oil works synergistically with butter, so we try to make sure to eat plenty of butter with breakfast. When we were still eating grains, it was pretty easy to eat butter with every breakfast as it goes so well with baked goods and porridge.  Once we stopped eating grains, I had to find a new way to get our butter in the mornings.  The notion of vegetables for breakfast used to sound strange to me, but on most days the kids and I now enjoy a breakfast of eggs cooked in butter served alongside buttered veggies.  I find myself craving this meal every day. What a great way to start the day!

Recipe: Simple Buttered Veggies
  • 2 cups veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots, spinach, or green beans)*
  • filtered water
  • 2-4 Tb butter, preferably from grassfed cows (veggies like broccoli can soak up lots of butter, veggies like peas don't so you'll need less with them)
  • celtic sea salt
  1. Place veggies in a small pot and add about 1/2-inch of filtered water. 
  2. Cook over medium heat until the water comes to a simmer.  
  3. Cover the pot and reduce the heat to low.  
  4. Continue to cook until the veggies are tender.  For peas and spinach, this will take only a minute or two.  For tougher veggies like broccoli, this will take 5-10 minutes. 
  5. Turn off heat and drain the veggies well (make sure you discard the cooking water).
  6. In the still-warm pot, add the butter and season the veggies liberally with salt.  
  7. Serve and enjoy!
*Time-saving tip: To cut down on prep time in the mornings, I like to use frozen vegetables.  Many vegetables do not freeze well, but I find that the flavor and texture of frozen broccoli, cauliflower, peas, spinach, and green beans are great.

This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist, Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade and Pennywise Platter at The Nourishing Gourmet!


Laura said...

I love to slather up them veggies with butter!! Yumm-O!

Christy said...

How weird that it has never occurred to me to eat veggies at breakfast - (besides in an omelet) - I am going to have eggs and spinach and mushrooms and BUTTER! for breakfast - thanks for opening up my eyes!

Shu Han said...

although peas don't soak up that much butter, cooking them in lots of butter realy add oomph to them! it's a tip from a famous chef, and i found that buttered peas are a world of difference from usual boiled peas!

Fareed Syed said...

Pls. advise, to make more tasty to these boiled buttered vegies, what else we can add in.

Ron said...

Adding some amazing Bulletproof coffee ( doesn't hurt :)