[excerpt] Ghee: Āyurveda’s Superfood

a ritual for Sight from (c) Sense-Care is Self-Care: Āyurveda & Yoga for Mental Resilience (2026)

We say in Ayurveda that “food is medicine,” and ghee perhaps epitomizes this notion. On the surface, ghee is nothing more than clarified butter—a food that’s used in cultures around the world, not just India and South Asia. It’s a practical preparation of this valuable source of fat, since in cooking out the water in butter renders it shelf-stable (as long as no water or other contaminants get inside the container); for those with dairy intolerances, ghee can be a surprising exception, since the cooking process also removes the milk fats (casein and lactose).

Beyond these practicalities, though, ghee is beloved in Ayurveda because of its unique prabhava, which means “special quality.” There are many foods, medicines, and food-medicines with a prabhava, where something about the substance is helpful because it doesn’t quite make sense. In the case of ghee, the special something is that it supports digestion without increasing or aggravating pitta dosha. How does ghee ignite agni (fire) but not pitta (fire + water)? Modern science has an approximate answer: ghee is a source of butyric acid, a short-chain fatty acid that feeds the “good” microbes in our gut, enhancing their ability to do the work of discernment and digestion of food associated with a quality of fire. In a way, gut microbes are our eyes on the inside—the little fires everywhere that illuminate the qualities and elements our food comprise, and send them on their way. Microbiome activity provides digestion with a kind of “light” from fire, but it doesn’t necessarily increase “heat” from fire, which we see more as gastric HCl or digestive enzymes; in fact, ghee will support the mucosal lining of the gut to buffer against those hot liquids.

Compelling and accurate as it is, this explanation doesn’t explain all of ghee’s alchemy. As the rishis and practitioners of Ayurveda for generations have observed, there is a special transformation that happens in the making of ghee—to the butter and to the person making it. It is a process that requires full concentration, since the line between not-done and done, between melted butter and ghee, is thin. One second, the liquid gold in your pot is still cloudy and bubbling, and the next it’s clear and nutty and if it stays any longer on the heat it will be burned. We might all have experience with this lesson from fire—there is close enough, and then there is too close.

Besides making sure you don’t wind up with a pot of brown butter, the concentration is a form of deep nourishment for the mind. When we focus our attention, the brain produces a neurotransmitter/hormone called oxytocin, known as the “cuddle hormone” that bonds new moms to their babies; the connection we form with things we pay attention to, then, is a form of falling in love (which might give you more reason to evaluate your social media habits). Yoga and Ayurveda have a saying that reflects this biochemical fact: where attention goes, prana, our flows. Watching the transformation of ghee, not only will your prana go into your food-medicine, potentiating its healing benefits and helping to smooth and regulate your own prana, but you will also receive prana from the ghee through your sense of sight. This mutual recognition of nourishment and transformation forges a powerful bond between you and the ghee, enhancing its ability to support your overall health—not only as an absence of disease or bodily tissues that perform their functions, but health as a state of recognition of the True Self, of the light of the soul that shines deep inside all of our cores, like the molten, dynamic, life-giving core of the Earth.

Learning to perceive and feel that just-right moment of doneness with ghee is a skill you can put to use in the rest of your life, too—which is especially important during the summer season, or for pitta-types, since it’s so easy to boil over and scorch when there is excess heat.

When used in cooking, ghee similarly “tempers” the intensity of more pungent herbs and spices; including something like asafoetida, or hing, a sulfurous resin that upon cooking in ghee transforms from straight-up smelly and intolerable to a unique umami goodness that soothes wily vata and cuts through kapha in all forms.

Topically, ghee calms inflammation—burns that come when we get too close to the fire, whether sunburns or irritations to the gastric lining—soothes dryness, and offers nourishment via the skin if fat as a food is harder to digest internally. There is a special preparation of ghee called 100 Wash Ghee, where it is passed through cold water by hand, that is extra lovely for the skin; it’s soft and almost whipped, helping it calm sunburns, psoriasis, rosacea, and more. Ghee-based nasya oil is wonderful for dry and irritated nasal passages, but also delivers healing directly to the brain and nervous system. Butyric acid crosses the blood-brain barrier, which activates the main switch for our relaxation/parasympathetic response, the vagus nerve, supporting harmony and communication of the gut-brain axis; it also reduces neuroinflammation that can contribute to brain fog, memory loss, and cognitive decline, and support concentration and mood. When ghee is prepared with herbs, like in nasya or abhyanga oils, the ghee will also deliver the herbs deeper into the system—and the qualities of the ghee will change to align with the herbs as well.

Whether it’s coating the skin outside or inside our body, ghee offers a protective layer that, similar to the myelin sheaths on nerves, fosters communication between the outside and inside. Ghee gazes at what we take into our bodies as edible or sensory food with soft, compassionate eyes, recognizes how our bodies can use that food and what to eliminate, and transforms that information into highest-quality dhatus and ojas. It is truly the embodiment of sneha, the Sanskrit word for “mother’s love”—the kind of love that sees the best, the potential, in her child and helps to bring that out into the world.

While ghee is a mainstream food item these days available at most stores, embraced even by fad diets, making your own ghee will enhance its nourishing qualities through ritual, focus, and love. Traditionally, ghee is made on the full moon so that it can soak up the soma, healing light, of the celestial body at its peak energy; moonlight being very similar to the cooling, nourishing, feminine “light” that ghee offers to the body. If you chant the Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra while it’s cooking, the ghee will also be infused with the vibrations of this invocation of immortality through divine light. That said, it’s better to make ghee whenever you can, even if it’s not on the full moon, than to not have ghee at all! If you want to prioritize the ritual, though, you might make larger quantities of ghee on the full moon to have extra around in case of “ghee-mergencies”—it will not spoil unless water gets into the jar, and in fact gets better with age.

The process of making ghee couldn’t be simpler, but as I mentioned earlier it takes a watchful eye to know when it’s done. If your first few batches aren’t perfect, don’t stress (that’s another pitta-pacifying lesson for you)—if it’s a little underdone (pale and/or cloudy), you can always cook the whole batch longer, or keep it refrigerated to avoid potential spoiling; if it’s a little overdone (it will have a stronger nutty smell and darker color), you can use it for topical applications or as an anupana for other medicinal formulas.

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Ingredients

1 pound organic, unsalted butter (cultured is ideal, but not necessary)

*This amount makes about 2 cups of ghee, which if used daily for cooking will last about 1 month—plan ahead to have enough to last you between moons and/or your personal ghee ritual days.

Method

1. Clean your space where you’ll be making ghee—tidy up any dishes or cookware, and maybe wave some incense around the kitchen or stove to cleanse any stagnant energy. Put your phone out of earshot and eyesight.
2. Lay out your butter on a clean surface. Take a few moments of quiet to reflect on all the bodies and hands the butter has passed through to arrive here. Send gratitude to mother earth, mother cow, and all the mothers that have contributed to this creation.
3. Place the butter in a heavy-bottomed, medium pan over medium heat. You may begin your mantras (using mala beads) as the butter melts and begins to boil; turn the heat down in order to keep the butter at a low simmer. Do not cover the pot. The butter will foam and sputter while it cooks, and whitish curds will begin to form on the bottom of the pot. If you need space, you can scoop off the white foam at the top while it cooks, but it will sink to the bottom over time.
4. Cook for about 30 minutes, watching closely for the moment of “clarification.” Usually, the bubbles will become smaller and sound lighter, brighter, and more “tinkly.” The ghee will be translucent and a darker golden color; and you’ll be able to see to the bottom of the pot where the milk fats are getting browned, too. (The ghee is burned if it has a nutty smell and is darker brown; when it cools, burned ghee looks almost white.) The more butter you are using, the more time it will take to clarify.
5. Let the ghee cool to room temperature (if you finish your mantras before it’s done, stay in silent concentration; if you don’t finish, you can take the pot off the stove to cool, and finish chanting). Pour it through a fine sieve or layers of cheesecloth into a clean, dry glass container, and seal with a tight lid when completely cool (you don’t want to close the jar while it’s hot, since condensation will form inside the jar). Discard the curds at the bottom of the saucepan.
6. If making on a full moon, you can leave the cooled jars on a windowsill overnight to take in the soma.
7. Ghee can be kept on the kitchen shelf, in a covered jar. It will cool in the jar as a soft, solid, yellow substance; in warmer temperatures, the ghee may liquify totally or partially, and that is okay. It does not need refrigeration; in fact, you should NOT keep it in the fridge to avoid condensation inside the jar. Don’t ladle out the ghee with a wet spoon or allow any water or food particles to get into the container, as this will create conditions for bacteria to grow and spoil the ghee.