Ghee: the essential postpartum staple
If there's only one postpartum staple you prepare for yourself in advance make it ghee. Ayurveda considers Ghee nectar, ambrosia, one of the finest foods we can eat, and trust me when I say once you incorporate it into your diet you'll never be able to live without it again.
From an Ayurvedic perspective, good fats are grounding and nourishing for new mothers. They are sattvic, meaning they promote harmony and balance in the mind, and help you relax and sleep more deeply.
Ghee is excellent for nourishing and rehydrating your body. It's strengthening, satisfying and soothing. And aids digestion, cleansing, and healing. If you choose to breastfeed, good-quality saturated fats are also an important element for enriching breast milk.
As a family, we use it every day in place of butter and as a fat for sautéing, frying, roasting and cooking food.
In postpartum I would encourage it to be used on top of porridge, congee, or kitchari; mixed into soups, stews, or broth, slathered on breads and baked goods, even mixed into drinks like cacao or golden milk.
On last note: it’s common that some women feel averse to consuming fats because of diet culture and societal pressure to bounce back, and although we should absolutely be avoiding any fats that are hydrogenated, homogenised or deep-fried including trans fats and margarine, your body needs good-quality saturated fats in abundance during the postpartum period making ghee is the perfect kind of good-quality fat to enjoy liberally.
Ingredients
4 x 400g grass-fed unsalted butter
As an aside: I only ever use Westgold unsalted butter (available from Woolworths) to make ghee, it's churned from cream instead of milk which makes the ghee especially delicious.
Method
1 / Preheat the oven to 100 - 120C.
2 / Place the butter in an oven proof dish and place in the oven for approx. 2 hours. The ghee will separate into three layers. Milk solids at the bottom, golden butter fat (ghee) in the middle, and floating 'crunchy' pieces at the top.
3 / Once separated into these three layers, remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.
4 / Skim the ‘crunchy’ bits off the ghee or use a fine mesh sieve and pour only the golden butter fat into glass jars, discarding the milk solids.
5 / Place the ghee in the fridge for an extra-long shelf-life, it will firm up as it’s a saturated fat, or store it in the pantry so that it stays soft and spreadable.
Ghee will remain fresh at room temperature for several weeks when sealed properly and all the milk solids have been removed.