<<Disclaimer:  Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Those of you who are following a gluten and casein free diet may be
interested in the views of Dr. Harold M. Farrell, Jr, a milk proteins
expert at the USDA in Philadelphia.  Don Kasarda was kind enough to
introduce me to Dr.  Farrell (thanks again, Don!).

I asked Dr. Farrell whether whey products and butter products contained
casein.

Dr. Farrell said that although the initial separation of whey and casein
when making cheese is fairly clean, during the cheese making process,
kappa casein macro peptides are released into the whey.  He said that
these appear to be less trouble to allergic individuals than the alpha
and beta caseins, but they all can cause problems.

As for butter, he said that commercial butter is mostly solid, but
contains significant amounts of casein in suspension within the
butterfat.  The clarification process used to make 'ghee' from butter
should remove the casein, but traces will probably still remain.  He
speculates that the remaining casein in ghee will be so small as to not
trigger any allergic response.  An analogous 'argument' has been going on
for months in this Celiac discussion group with respect to grain
alcohols.  Some claim that the distillation process insures that only
trace amounts of gluten will remain in alcohol, but many parents say
their children have strong reactions to flavorings with grain alcohol
bases.

Obviously each person has to make their own decisions.  My son is highly
allergic to casein, but shows no adverse response to ghee.  We have not
tried butter, but after speaking with Dr. Farrell, I plan to continue to
avoid butter.

Bill Elkus