The Top 7 Grass Fed Ghee Brands – 2024 Update

If you’re committed to getting unnaturally healthy by banishing all unnatural ingredients from your diet, ghee is one of most useful weapons you can wield. Why? Simply because ghee can entirely replace processed vegetable oils, one of the biggest culprits behind acne and ill health, and do so with a flood of nutrients and rich flavour.

Ghee is essentially pure milk fat. It’s butter which has been heated, evaporated and skimmed to remove all remaining milk proteins and water. The advantages of eliminating vegetable oils are numerous; removing pro-inflammatory omega 6s, lowering your daily intake of free radicals, avoiding mutated trans fats…

Yet ghee itself is also rich in conjugated linoleic acid, a natural trans fatty acid which protects the heart. Grass fed ghee is a rare source of vitamin K2, which shuttles calcium into your bones where it belongs. Ghee is rich in butyrate, which has anti-inflammatory properties.

Capping this is the buttery, nutty taste, like everything you love about butter amplified one thousand fold. Ghee also has an advantage for those can’t tolerate butter, for the casein and lactose contents are reduced even further, with only traces remaining.

The real question is what the best brand is. Originating in India, the country still produces much of the world’s supply, yet adulterated products are common. It’s easy to find a ghee which will accomplish nothing, but equally easy to find a natural brand. 

That’s why today we’ll discuss the top 10 ghee brands available. Every brand listed here is certified as organic by the USDA. For a shortcut, Ancient Organics and Tin Star Ghee are the best brands.

Let’s gets started:

 

One – Ancient Organics

The ghee against which all others are compared. Ancient Organics lives up to its name: it features one of the most storied health foods of the Indian subcontinent, and it’s as natural as can be.

Firstly, this ghee is organic, produced from milk from cows grazing on pesticide-free grassland, which is enriched only with natural fertilisers. This guarantees your freedom from toxic chemicals and increases the nutrition.

Secondly, Ancient Organics is grass-fed. The milk is sourced from traditional farms in Northern California, with decades of experience. The cows have access to grass and silage in wide ranging grasslands for the whole year, situated in a Marin and Sonoma county microclimate of everlasting moisture where the fields’ foliage is always plentiful, with flower species like Purple Needlegrass and Cow Clover to provide particularly diverse nutrition.

Occasionally the cows are fed grains such as rye to supplement their diet, but under the supervision of a nutritional expert, and the cows are never fed soy or corn.

These features combine to create one of the tastiest, richest and most nutritious ghees in existence. Reviewers describe the taste as “intensely buttery”, “divine” and “nutty buttery”, with disappointed reports more related to the inherent taste of ghee itself. In reviews of ghee brands far and wide, you’ll find customers claiming to be pleased but disappointed compared to Ancient Organics.

Elsewhere, Ancient Organics is packaged in a glass jar, rather than plastic. Ghee from organic milk is the sole ingredient, with additives absent. It’s from cow’s milk, rather than buffalo’s or crocodile’s. The additive ethyl butyrate is nowhere to be found. The double organic certification from the USDA and CCOF mean that the spectre of adulteration is far away.

Ancient Organics is my number one recommendation for nutritious and natural ghee. 

Amazon link: ANCIENT ORGANICS 100% Organic Ghee.

 

Two – Gold Nugget Ghee

Another ghee with a double organic certification, from both the USDA and CCOF. Gold Nugget Ghee is sourced exclusively from cows grazing on fields in Northern California.

There’s only one ingredient: organic milk. This ghee is made from cultured butter, which alters the taste slightly, and made slowly over a burning flame in the old Indian tradition. Gold Nugget Ghee comes in a glass jar, weighing 8oz. It’s grass fed, and you can also buy a turmeric infused version and a medicinal mushroom infused version.

The name is accurate, for this ghee is a deep golden colour, with the cow’s feeding on grass all year round. Why is grass-fed ghee important? Grass is a cow’s natural diet, resulting in many nutritional differences compared to ghee from cows fed grains and soy. The omega 3 levels are higher, achieving a balance with omega 6, and the content of the fat soluble nutrients vitamin A and vitamin K2 is higher.

The dense nutrition in grass and wildflowers migrates its way into the cow’s milk and the eventual ghee. Through a more indirect route, conjugated linloeic acid levels are also higher. The term grass fed is also slightly inaccurate, for cows feed on wildflowers, clovers and any roughage that grows among plants.

While less popular than Ancient Organics ghee, Gold Nugget Ghee matches it in every respect. 

Amazon link: Gold Nugget Traditional Organic Ghee.

 

Three – Tin Star Ghee

A ghee brand based in Texas, which sources its butter from New Zealand and Ireland, with the immediate advantage of being more grass-fed than any other.

The cows roam lush grassy fields the entire year, and when supplies do run low, their diets are supplemented with silage and haylage rather than barley or corn. None of Tin Star’s cows have ever been fed antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides or corn. As such, Tin Star Ghee is certified as organic by the USDA.

As for the ghee itself, Tin Star doubles down particularly hard on casein, with a triple filtration system to make this optimal for the allergic. The ghee is produced in small batches, over a hot fire with no difference to the techniques of rural India. The customer reports are fantastic, describing the flavour as delicious and nutty and with only the occasional batch having a gritty texture.

Tin Star Ghee comes in a glass jar which weighs a huge 32oz, and it’s confirmed to be cow ghee rather than buffalo. This is a minor trick to watch out for – jars from India that simply say ghee may in fact be sourced from buffalo. Half of India’s milk is now buffalo milk, and the ghee has a paler colour.

The problems? There aren’t many, but the taste is different, and buffalo milk is almost twice as rich in casein, making lingering traces more abundant. Conversely, buffalo milk contains much more fat than cow milk, but because ghee is the isolated fat of a milk, there’s no difference in content between buffalo and cow ghee. The fat profiles vary just slightly, with buffalo ghee being slightly lower in polyunsaturated fats and slightly richer in conjugated linoleic acid. The vitamins are a mystery, with no data available on the differences.

Buffalo milk is safe, but you should always be on top of what you’re purchasing, and choosing Tin Star is a great way to accomplish that. 

Amazon link: Tin Star Organic Grass Fed Ghee.

 

Four – Veda Ghee

This ghee is again sourced from some of the happiest cows on earth, those roaming around North Californian farms where they eat grass all day and all year.

Veda Ghee is identical to Ancient Organics: the cows can roam the fields at will, but are occasionally supplemented with grains under the supervision of a nutritional specialist. That’s why Veda Ghee refuses to call their ghee 100% grass fed, in the interests of transparency, but the real figure is probably 90% plus.

Veda Ghee is certified organic by the USDA, and uses cultured butter, with bacteria that generate a particularly rich taste. The jar is made of  glass and contains 16oz of ghee. Veda Ghee is handmade in small batches rather than an endlessly grinding set of factory machinery. As for the all-important taste report, there’s a few dissatisfied users, but most are delighted.

Veda Ghee is also manufactured in the USA, and this an important point. India may have a storied tradition of ghee, in religious ceremonies and culture, but never automatically assume that India is where you should buy it from: adulterated ghee is everywhere. Combinations with cheap vegetable oils to lower the cost and increase the profit margin for the business are sold both on Indian street corners and on the international market. Palm oil is popular, since like ghee, it is solid at room temperature, but palm oil has no notable health benefits and encourages the steamrollering of rainforests in Malaysia and Indonesia. Many ghee jars are actually 100% “vegetable ghee”, with no cows being involved.

Watch out! Fraudsters want you to revere the ancient cultural practises, so that they can pounce and make a quick profit today. It’s better to buy a grain fed bottle of ghee than this. A brand with the USDA seal, like Veda Ghee, will always be free from this danger. If you must buy an Indian brand, then choose one which is certified, like Sanjeevani Organics.

Veda Ghee is a reliable and trustworthy brand of grass-fed ghee.

Amazon link: Veda Organic Grass Fed Ghee.

 

Five – Pure Indian Foods

A ghee which is heated, evaporated and skimmed by a family stretching back 5 generations.

Pure Indian Foods is grass fed, and manufactured in the USA. It’s certified as organic by the USDA, and the user reviews are particularly positive, calling it buttery and delicious. Interestingly, Pure Indian Foods claims that their ghee has a grainy texture compared to the smooth waxiness of other brands.

Each jar contains 7.8oz and the cows’ fields are free from pesticides and artificial fertilisers. There’s no major difference to other brands listed here other than its particular high quality, but Pure Indian Foods also sells two combinations: a spicy superghee infused with turmeric, and a coconut oil/ghee combination in an attempt to combine the two most popular paleo diet cooking fats.

While healthy, keep your wits about you in the wider ghee world. Indian ghee will sometimes actually be the paler buffalo ghee, but oranged up with turmeric or ginger. Both spices are healthy, and a convenient way to combine superfoods, but make sure that you’re not misled.

Another sneaky ingredient is ethyl butyrate, a flavouring chemical also added to American brands of commercial orange juice. While not particularly unhealthy, ethyl butyrate tastes terrible! Its flavour is so overpowering that it blocks out all the subtleties of the ghee underneath, and that overpowering flavour isn’t even enjoyable.

Pure Indian Foods is ghee in its most natural form: grass-fed, nutty and buttery, and with one ingredient, although with its massive depth of nutrition, saying one ingredient doesn’t do it justice.

Amazon link: Pure Indian Foods Organic Grassfed Original Ghee.

 

Six – Organic Valley

A trustworthy brand, for Organic Valley has a large library of positive reviews on amazon, and combines this with supreme quality.

Organic Valley’s taste is reportedly “rich and creamy” and “mild and buttery”. The cows, meanwhile, spend their lives eating grass and wildflowers in farms across the US. Organic Valley isn’t 100% grass fed, but the cow feed is 100% pesticide, antibiotic, and growth hormone free. Other advantages include the USDA organic certification, an Oregon Tilth organic certification, and a decent supply of 13oz.

Unlike Ancient Organics, Organic Valley doesn’t contain cultured ghee, and cultured ghee is a term with much confusion surrounding it. Essentially, cultured ghee is made from cultured butter. It is not ghee which is cultured after it became ghee.

Cultured butter is butter which is treated with bacteria to consume the remaining lactose. Meanwhile, culturing ghee is almost impossible, due to the absence of said lactose. There are differences however, for the bacteria in cultured butter churn out metabolites which alter the flavour, which will be passed onto the ghee. However, cultured ghee is not a probiotic, for the bacteria is destroyed in the heating process.

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The opposite of cultured ghee is sweet cream ghee, where no fermentation is used, and that’s what Organic Valley contains. The only downside with Organic Valley is that less nutritious grains such as corn are occasionally fed to the cows, compared to Ancient Organics where corn is never used. However, with almost constant access to grass, the reduction in nutrition will be minimal and only applicable at certain times of the year.

With over 2000 Amazon ratings as of March 2024, Organic Valley is a particularly trustworthy brand of ghee; you’re almost guaranteed to get the deep yellow, nutritious fat you paid for. 

Amazon link: Organic Valley Butter Ghee.

 

Seven – Banyan Botanicals

A similar brand to Ancient Organics. Banyan Botanicals is certified as organic by the USDA, guaranteeing its complete freedom from pesticide and antibiotic-filled milk.

The cows are grass-fed all year, although since there isn’t a 100% grass fed statement, they’re likely supplemented with carefully selected grains occasionally.

This ghee uses sweet cream butter rather than cultured butter. Banyan Botanicals comes in a glass jar, containing 13.4oz of deep yellow ghee. Organic milk is the only ingredient, with no unnecessary ethyl butyrate or spices being included.

This ghee is sourced from the same location as Ancient Organics; the humid moist Marin and Sonoma counties of Northern California. Banyan Botanicals’ main focus as a company is respecting ancient Ayurvedic traditions. Ghee itself dates back to 2000BC, when inhabitants of North-East India needed to transport butter for long distances without it going rancid. By 1500BC, ghee featured in the Dharmasutra verses, a text dictating social and cultural practises. The Hindu deity Prajapati, lord of creatures, reportedly created his children by pouring ghee into fire.

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These cultural traditions carry on in India today, particularly southern India. Banyan Botanicals may be made in the USA, but the ghee is heated traditionally over a burning fire and made in small batches. The final advantage is a positive collection of reviews, with only occasional dissatisfied customers.

There’s thousands of ghees being sold around the world as we speak, but Banyan Botanicals is among the top ten a Westerner could buy. 

Amazon link: Banyan Botanicals Grass-Fed Ghee.

 

 

False ghees

Never underestimate the scale of ghee fraud, particularly if you’re travelling to India. In 2009, undercover journalists launched a sting operation against a leading Indian animal fat producer. The company offered these journalists, who were posing as ghee manufacturers, a 4-5 tonne shipment of animal fat monthly to dilute their ghee products with.

The business man was also recorded boasting about how many ghee manufacturers he was shipping animal fat to already. In the subsequent raids which this triggered, many samples of ghee were revealed to actually contain animal fat, palm oil, and chemicals. Since in 2009 the Prevention of Adulteration Act only carried a small fine, this businessman was able to return to action quickly, reformed or not. Read the story here.

The lesson is clear: buy a reputable brand of ghee. You read about people buying fake products constantly, but if you fail, you could easily open up your freshly delivered jar and be the next victim.

Something else you should understand is the difference between clarified butter and ghee. The starting methods are the same, with boiling and heating to separate the butterfat and protein layers, but with ghee, the makers take the further step of heating the butter to caramelise the milk solids before they’re removed. This creates a particularly nutty flavour and aroma, and is the traditional method for creating the sacred dish of Indian legend.

 

 

Conclusion

The average ghee is made like this: butter is melted slowly over a fire. The butter is then boiled to evaporate the last remaining traces of water. Afterwards, three distinct layers will remain. A thin skin of whey protein, a middle layer of butterfat, and a bottom layer of casein. The final step towards completing the ghee is to skim the whey protein and remove the butterfat within. Every ghee on this list follows this age old blueprint.

We’ve said all that needs to be said about purchasing ghee. If you want to cut corners with a shortcut, buy one of these brands. If you wish to experiment with local ghee brands, keep the buffalo version, ethyl butyrate, spices and palm oil dilution in mind.

A smart idea would be to buy at least one of these ghees first, to give you a reference for future experiments. Overall, Tin Star Ghee is hard to beat due to the confirmed lack of any grains, but that’s only a fractional advantage over brands like Ancient Organics, which may be 95% grass fed.

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Thanks for reading!