Butter vs Plant Oils: What The Latest Evidence Shows

We’ve done some relevant head-to-head comparisons before in our “This or That” section:

• Avocado Oil vs Olive Oil – Which is Healthier?
• Olive Oil vs Coconut Oil – Which is Healthier?
• Sesame Oil vs Almond Oil – Which is Healthier?
• Sunflower Oil vs Canola Oil – Which is Healthier?
• Margarine vs Butter – Which is Healthier
• Butter vs Ghee – Which is Healthier?

We also did a deeper-dive into butter vs margarine:

Butter vs Margarine – Mythbusting Edition ← this one clears up a lot of misinformation about both butter and margarine

As well as: Saturated Fats: What’s The Truth? Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?

So, we’re not coming into this one today unawares, and/but it’s an interesting comparison we haven’t directly written about before: butter vs plant oils in general

The Study

It was a JAMA Internal Medicine cohort study, which followed 221,054 adults (average age 56 at the start of the study, with a standard deviation of 7 years from that age) for up to 33 years.

Why “up to”? Because not everybody survived the study.

Specifically, 50,932 deaths were recorded, including 12,241 from cancer and 11,240 from cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Participants were categorized into quartiles based on butter or plant-based oil intake, and…

• The highest quartile (i.e. the 25% of people who consumed the most) butter intake linked to a 15% higher total mortality.
• The highest quartile (i.e. the 25% of people who consumed the most) plant-based oil intake linked to a 16% lower total mortality.

But, if those are the opposite ends of the spectrum, what about smaller differences?

Every 10g/day increase in consumption of plant-based oils yielded…

• 11% lower cancer mortality.
• 6% lower CVD mortality.

Meanwhile, 10g/day increase in butter consumption yielded…

• 12% higher cancer mortality.
• 17% higher CVD mortality.

These benefits must have a cap (after all, one cannot just drink liters of olive oil per day for for a 3400% decrease in mortality), but that cap was not ascertained, because there was no group drinking liters of plant oils per day, not even for science.

However, in the realm of small changes, substituting even 10g/intake of total butter with an equivalent amount of plant-based oils yielded 17% lower total mortality.

You can read the study in full, here: Butter and Plant-Based Oils Intake and Mortality

“So, what about the surely great difference between seed oils and olive oil?”

Compared the the vast gaping statistical chasm that lay between the results of butter and the results of plant oils, which plant oil one chooses doesn’t make a huge difference, iff one isn’t consuming a large amount—the important thing was skipping butter in favor of a plant oil of some kind.

Note also that, for example, deep-frying a starchy food like potatoes will cause the resultant fries (or such), even if not visibly oily, to now have about 10–15% of their original weight in water, replaced with oil. So, 100g (about 3oz) of fries may have around 10-15g oil. Obviously, this does depend on the cut and other factors, but that’s a ballpark figure.

Here’s a lengthier discussion about seed oils than we have room for today:

If you’re worried about inflammation, stop stressing about seed oils and focus on the basics ← in other words, yes it counts, but there are other things that count a lot more, such that if you’re paying attention to the other things, the fact that you sprayed your wok with a little canola oil before stir-frying those vegetables isn’t going to make a meaningful difference.

An as for olive oil? It’s a famously healthy oil, and certainly a candidate for the top spot along with avocado oil*:

All About Olive Oil ← we talk lipids, polyphenols, virginity, and more!

*…and it’s worth noting that these two oils’ (excellent) lipids profiles are very similar, meaning that the main factor between them is that olive oil usually retains vitamins that avocado oil doesn’t.

Enjoy!