If you feel more unsure about what to eat every time you listen to a podcast or glance at Instagram, TikTok or Facebook, you’re among many. There’s a lot of confusing, misleading and inaccurate nutrition information floating around these days.
One example is the health halo around butter, with some positioning it as a health food and others saying it’s better for you than olive oil and other vegetable oils. But is this actually true?
There’s a whole lot of nuance to consider any time you’re looking at a nutrition claim. And while some butter can definitely be part of a healthy diet, there’s a lot of evidence that olive oil is the better option, especially when it comes to heart and metabolic health.
“The research is pretty clear that all vegetable oils are better for us than butter,” said Dr. Nate Wood, assistant professor of medicine and director of culinary medicine at Yale School of Medicine and Irving and Alice Brown Teaching Kitchen at Yale New Haven Health. “Vegetable oils — whether they’re made from olives, avocados or seeds — are high in heart-healthy unsaturated fats.”
Here’s what nutrition experts want you to know about butter vs. olive oil, including how they impact the body, which is the more nutritious choice and why.
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“The big misconception that I’m currently seeing is that less processed sources of fat [such as butter] are better for us,” Wood said. “While it’s true that we should eat fewer processed foods, butter — even if it’s less processed than some types of fat — is not a healthy choice.”
Butter’s popularity is also being driven by a few other trends: pushback against low-fat diet trends, a growing interest in “whole” foods, keto and low-carb diets, and a distrust of seed oils, Vernarelli explained.
Many people assume that since butter is minimally processed or “natural,” it’s heart-healthy. But “natural” and minimally-processed fats differ widely in their impact on cardiometabolic health, said Jacqueline Vernarelli, a public health nutritionist, nutritional epidemiologist and associate professor and master of public health program director at Sacred Heart University. “Butter isn’t toxic, but it’s also not nutritionally equivalent to oils rich in unsaturated fats,” she said.
The newly released 2025-2030 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans adds a bit more confusion into the mix. The guidelines suggest people limit their daily saturated fat consumption to 10% of their total calories for the day. For cooking or adding fats to meals, they recommend “using the most nutrient-dense natural options with essential fatty acids, such as olive oil.” (Note: olive oil isn’t actually a source of essential fatty acids.)
The guidelines also recommend cooking with butter or beef tallow — promoting saturated fats from “real food” sources, like meat, full-fat dairy and butter. This is a bit contradictory, because it would be difficult to consume less than 10% of daily calories from saturated fats while also following these recommendations.
What nutrition experts and researchers say about butter vs. olive oil
Butter and olive oil are both fats, but they differ in their fatty acid breakdown.
Butter is high in saturated fat, which is known to have a negative impact on health. A tablespoon of butter has about 11.5 grams of total fat. Of that, there are more than 7 grams of saturated fats, over 3 grams of monounsaturated fats, and less than a gram of polyunsaturated fats.
Meanwhile, olive oil and other vegetable oils are high in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. One tablespoon of olive oil has 13.5 grams of fat. Within that, there are less than 2 grams of saturated fats, nearly 10 grams of monounsaturated fats, and just under 1.5 grams of polyunsaturated fats.
“Diets higher in saturated fat are consistently linked to higher LDL cholesterol levels and increased risk of heart disease,” said registered dietitian Dalia Beydoun. “Large studies also show that diets higher in saturated fat are linked to higher all-cause mortality, [meaning] death from any cause, while diets higher in polyunsaturated fats are linked to lower risk of heart disease, cancer and overall mortality.”
There’s also plenty of evidence that replacing saturated fats such as butter with unsaturated fats like olive oil, canola oil and avocado oil is associated with reduced LDL cholesterol levels and a lower risk of heart disease.
“This is one of the most consistent findings in nutrition science,” Vernarelli said.
Findings from a 2025 study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine show that replacing 10 grams of total butter each day with 10 grams of plant-based oils was associated with an estimated 17% reduction in death from any cause and a 17% reduction in death from cancer.
There’s a lot of evidence to support eating olive oil for heart health. For example, findings from one study suggest that eating about half a tablespoon of olive oil each day is associated with a significantly lower risk of heart disease.
Choosing between butter and olive oil
While butter isn’t the greatest for your health, it doesn’t need to be completely off the table. When part of an otherwise nutritious diet, using butter sparingly can be a reasonable choice to add flavor to your foods. “Food isn’t just for nutrition — it’s also taste, texture, and enjoyment,” Beydoun said. “Butter can make more sense in certain recipes, especially things like cookies or pastries, where using a liquid oil just won’t give the same result.”
But this doesn’t mean you should use butter as the primary fat for your everyday cooking, especially if you have heart health in mind. “For sautéing, roasting, dressings and general use, olive oil or another unsaturated oil makes more sense nutritionally,” Beydoun said.
And if you have a family history of heart disease or have high LDL cholesterol, olive oil and canola oil are a better option than butter, said registered dietitian Amy Goldsmith.
For a better idea of how much butter is OK to consume, keep in mind that the American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fat intake to 6% of total calories for the day.
“For someone with a 2,000-calorie diet, this is only 13 grams of saturated fat,” Goldsmith said. “Since one teaspoon of butter has 7 grams of saturated fat, it is important that everyone is aware of additional foods they are consuming with saturated fat, as the dose makes the poison.”
When deciding which type of fat to use, Goldsmith suggested considering your portion size and what your entire saturated fat intake for the day will look like. Remember that many other foods also contain saturated fats, including fatty meats, cheese, ice cream and coconut oil. “Once someone understands their intake and health,” Goldsmith said, “they can make a more informed decision.”