Hi Donna,
Well, the bad news is that probably none of it is actually safe for someone who has a serious casein sensitivity. The "regular" versions are typically highly variable on casein content. Early on when I was recovering, I tried some ghee that I found in my local health food store. I didn't have a major reaction, but it was suspicious enough that I stopped using it and have never tried it since. It's clearly a "low-casein" product.
You may be like me — after I was in remission for a year or 2 I discovered that I can tolerate casein without any digestive system issues. But the problem is that I produce antibodies to it, which means that it causes chronic inflammation (and things such as slowly increasing osteoarthritis), so asymptomatic or not, I avoid casein. While trying to find some actual statistics on casein content I came across this blog, which I believe sums up the issues surrounding ghee rather well:
So what is Doctor DiNezza's opinion on ghee if you're casein intolerant?
No. No. No. No. Sweet Jesus, NO. Don't do it. ESPECIALLY if you have an autoimmune disease.
Here's the thing, kids: Casein sensitivity is just as serious as a gluten sensitivity, which is just as serious as full-blown Celiac disease (in my opinion). If you are sensitive to this nasty stuff any little bit of exposure has the potential to piss off your immune system. Interestingly, if you read the comments on many of these "hooray for ghee" blogs you'll see many, many people saying that they do, in fact react to ghee. Frustratingly, this is usually met with a response from the posting author saying "well, have you tried THIS ghee?" Oy vey. You wouldn't see any Celiacs reaching for low-gluten bread if there was such a thing, let alone questioning the quality or the type of low-gluten bread when they react to it poorly. So, why are so many dairy intolerant people so eager to embrace ghee?
1. It's freaking delicious
2. One of the big "selling points" of paleo is the whole "holy crap I was told for years that I couldn't eat these foods but now you're telling me they're okay to eat and possibly even healthy?? BOOYA!" Dairy is one of those foods.
3. Paleo and primal people like to talk about the health benefits of dairy, which I readily admit are numerous if your immune system and gut don't say otherwise. Heck, many people now put butter or ghee in their coffee, even. Obviously we casein intolerant folk don't want to feel left out of the fun.
4. What else are you supposed to use for cooking oil? Soy bean oil? Psssssh
5. Did I mention it's delicious?
I personally don't trust ghee and I don't recommend that my patients use it if they are sensitive to dairy.
Commercially available ghee can only be guaranteed to be so pure. Purity farms, for example states that their ghee contains no more than 0.11% casein. I remember digging a few months ago and figuring out that 0.11% comes out to around 1200 PPM casein (I will try to find where I found that number). To give you a reference of how much casein that is, for beer to be considered "gluten free" it needs to test below 20 PPM of gluten. 20 versus 1200 Parts Per Million. No thank you- I'll stick with my coconut spread and play it safe.
Homemade ghee is likely even worse than store-bought ghee as far as casein content goes*. I'm all about making stuff from scratch but come on, folks. I've seen people make ghee before- you simmer the butter until the proteins foam at the top, then you scoop off the foam with what looks like a wonton scooper or a spoon. I would get the heebie jeebies if somebody cooked gluteney pasta in my pots and pans even if they cleaned them out afterward. What makes us believe that we can do an adequate job getting rid of those pesky milk proteins? I don't buy it.
Lastly, a plea to all the paleo bloggers out there:
Please, please stop telling people they can have ghee if they are casein intolerant. Unless you have the laboratory testing from multiple people to back up your claims, I'm just not buying it- but that's not the problem. The problem is that your audience might believe you. Regular people who don't know any better believe what they find on the internet. Don't be the person who gives them incorrect and potentially dangerous information.
Why Ghee Is NOT Safe If You Are Casein Intolerant/Sensitive
Her math is a little shaky. In the example she uses, 0.11% casein is actually 1,100 ppm.
The website at the following link states that:
Very pure ghee (99 -99.5% pure butter oil) may have trace amounts of casein and lactose remaining, but unless a person is extremely sensitive, it will normally not cause problems, even if other dairy does.
https://www.pureindianfoods.com/dairy-i ... -a/259.htm
But of course that 0.5 to 1 % impurity content could be all sorts of things. The point is though, if this is the best that "very pure ghee" is capable of, the casein content of any ghee is highly suspect.
Cultured ghee is simply ghee made from cultured butter. All that said though, I'm not sure that casein is as grave a threat as gluten, because it seems to be relatively easy for many of us to develop a tolerance for it (as long as our diet is gluten-free). IMO the biggest threat from casein occurs in combination with gluten or gluten cross-contamination.
Tex
.jpg){kind=avatar}
), but in most developed countries, the GF sections of stores would be only a tiny fraction of their current size if a 5 ppm gluten limit were imposed and rigidly enforced. A lot of expensive changes would have to be made in this country, and probably in Europe, also.
I had to avoid corn while I was recovering and I found that much, much tougher than avoiding gluten or dairy. Corn works just fine for me now, though.