Does Butter Break a Fast?

Technically, eating anything will break a fast. But there are some unique benefits to having butter during a fast that you need to know.

Does Butter Break a Fast?

If you are following Intermittent Fasting for religious purposes or you are following a water or dry fast, then any food of any type will break your fast. However, for the purposes that we follow with the Complete Intermittent Fasting Bundle protocols, butter will not break your fast.

One of the main goals with Intermittent Fasting is to reduce how often insulin is released in order to tap into fat burning mechanisms. Pure fat sources, such as butter (or ghee), do not spike the storing hormone insulin and therefore keeps the body in a fat burning state. This is called a “fasting mimicking” state. On the other hand, products that contain protein or carbohydrates can cause insulin to spike and therefore will break a fast.

If you’re using butter in your coffee while fasting (like with Keto Coffee – see below for three free recipes), ideally it’s important to opt for a grass-fed butter. Grass-fed butter has additional health perks that regular grain-fed butter does not have. Grass-fed butter is rich in vitamin K2 which is essential for directing calcium out of the arteries and into the bones.(1) Butter is also rich in a short chain fatty acid called butyric acid. Butyric acid has been found to help reduce inflammation in the gut and therefore aid in gut healing.(2) I’ll Keto Coffee cheers to that!

Butter Coffee Recipe That Won’t Break a Fast

From a fat burning perspective, we want to focus on coffee recipes that won’t spike the storing hormone insulin. Below is a classic butter coffee recipe that you can use.

The Original Keto Coffee

This is the classic Intermittent Fasting coffee recipe that I personally use every morning. You can get the recipe and the health benefit details with the video below.

Studies

Vitamin K2

Butyric Acid