Few foods have sparked as much debate as butter and its health attributes. Since the , the American Heart Association has been recommending limiting foods high in saturated fats, found in butter. Fast forward to 2024, and we know a lot more about butter, saturated fat and heart disease.
So, should you eat butter? And if you're resistant to parting with it, what's the healthiest butter out there? Here’s what the best available research says. Butter from cow’s milk has 7 grams of saturated fat, which is a considerable amount. The suggests limiting saturated fat to no more than 6% of your calories, which equates to 13 grams of saturated fat if you’re on a 2,000 calorie diet.
These recommendations are based on the idea that saturated fats have been linked to increased cholesterol levels and a higher risk for heart disease. But more recently, scientists are questioning if saturated fat is as harmful as once thought and whether the saturated fat in butter has the same effect on your cholesterol and heart disease risk as the saturated fats in other foods, such as red meat, chocolate, yogurt, cheese and more. Newer suggests that on its own, saturated fat may not raise the risk of heart disease or dying from heart disease.
So, it’s a complicated topic! Yet the news for butter remains somewhat bleak. When a 2018 compared the , butter and coconut oil (also high in saturated fat) on cholesterol levels and other heart disease markers among healthy adults, the results showed that b.
