Is Butter Good for You? Or Bad? What Does Science Say?


We love butter, but does it love us back? Every study about its effects on our health (there are a lot of them) seems to say something different, and we’re left feeling torn and confused as we lovingly fold butter into our kouign amann dough.

We were overjoyed when a study earlier this year proved butter may actually be good for us (or, at least, not that bad)—and we weren’t the only ones. Mark Bittman of The New York Times even wrote an editorial praising our move toward more natural, real fats. But recent news indicates that there may have been some flaws in the study that said so, and we’re back to wondering: What’s up, butter?

It’s time we got to the bottom of things. It’s time to finally, once and for all (sorta), answer the question: What does science say about butter? We combed through a century and a half of scientific studies to find every claim, counter-claim, and counter-counter-claim made about this delicious fat—and its slightly less delicious cousin, margarine.

1855 Americans should use oil instead of butter—because butter may be obsolete. In fact, butter is purely “respiratory,” a food that, like “sugar, starch, and alcohol, goes merely to form fat.” But wait: Maybe butter’s okay if it’s, um, fermented? Storing your butter in a “strong brine” could help it to keep for up to a year.

1884 Margarine can cause your teeth to loosen, your skin to crack, and your hair to fall out. Also, the adulteration of butter (by adding other fat solids) is a damn shame, and because it’s being tampered with, nobody wants to eat it anymore.

1886 Margarine is manufactured under no restrictions; it’s bad for dairymen, and bad for your health.

1901 There’s a lot of bacteria in butter; salted varieties keep better, so you should eat those instead of unsalted varieties.

1913 Butter’s so bad for you that it gets banned from Vassar College (along with cotton mattresses). Also, butter could carry disease. You should eat margarine.

1928 Americans eating margarine instead of butter (and also eating “five times more” potatoes) will reduce the U.S. mortality rate.

1948 Butter and margarine are equally healthy (or equally unhealthy).

1979 Butter is probably better for you than margarine, because butter hasn’t been “chemically tampered with.”

1984 Cholesterol is BAD and butter is the cause.

1990 Butter is worse for men’s cholesterol levels than vegetable oils. Also, margarine is a better choice than butter, so long as its fat levels are under 30 percent trans. Butter is the MOST DANGEROUS fat.

1993 Whether it’s butter or margarine, solid and semi-solid fats are worse for you than are natural oils.

1998 Low-trans-fat margarine is totally better for you than butter. Actually, no. Butter is better, because it’s a fresh, real food. Gah—what to believe!? Margarine apparently improves your “blood lipid profiles” better than butter. Well, that’s something, we guess.

2000 Butter can actually protect you against pretty much every ill, including heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and osteoporosis; butter—or actually the vitamins it contains—is essential for your health.

2002 If you’re overweight (and a rat), eating butter will make you fatter. If you’re thin (and a rat), it’ll make you skinnier.

2004 Eating butter most likely won’t increase your chances for getting breast cancer—but it may increase your ovarian cancer risk.

2006 Butter’s a little bit unhealthy (saturated fats), but so is margarine (trans fats). You should probably just use olive oil instead.

2007 To raise your good cholesterol and lower your bad cholesterol, replace carbohydrates with fat. But this only works with unsaturated fat—so limit that butter.

2008 Artificial butter is harmful to your lungs—if inhaled.

2009 Eating butter may reduce your risk of heart attack.

2010 Margarine is a smarter choice than butter, but butter is a better choice than olive and canola oils, which raise the fats in your blood stream significantly more after eating.

2011 Butter (and cod liver oil) can help halt and reverse tooth decay.

2012 The saturated fat in butter can slow down your cognitive ability.

2013 The removal of saturated fat—that’d be butter—from our diet has made cardiovascular disease more prevalent. Although! People who eat more vegetable fats than animal fats have higher death rates.

2014 Butter—and other full-fat foods—may help us lose weight. In other good news, a new study says there is definitely no link between the saturated fat in butter and heart disease. But wait: Some big flaws with that study prove that there may be a thread of connection between butter and disease after all. No. Wait again. Butter really is okay. Just in moderation, and as a part of a balanced diet.

So what’s the deal: Is butter good for us or bad? It looks like the jury’s still out. One thing’s for sure, though: Butter is delicious—and that’s a fact.

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