Can I consume BUTTER on a dairy-free diet?

This is a question I often get asked when I recommend patients follow a dairy-free diet. This a diet that removes cow’s dairy from the diet. So you are removing milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream from the diet that are cow-based. The reason we are removing cow’s dairy from the diet is because there is a protein in cow’s dairy called casein A1, which is a known inflammatory protein. We, as humans, are not able to effectively breakdown this protein.

So when I introduce this plan to a patient, they will often ask if you can have BUTTER on this diet. And BUTTER is one cow dairy product that I’m ok with people consuming and the reason for this is that BUTTER doesn’t contain the casein, which is the inflammatory protein that is part of cow’s dairy. It mostly contains the FAT and the fat is the healthy part.

The answer is YES, you can consume BUTTER on a dairy-free diet.