Butter vs margarine: A quick guide

It can feel confusing when you’re presented with that classic supermarket option: butter or margarine?

On the one hand, butter (which is made by churning cream) is natural. On the other hand, isn’t cream just fat?

Then there’s margarine, the processed option and usually made from vegetable oils. But that’s fat too, right?

The answer is that butter and margarine are both produced from fats. But when it comes to healthy eating, it’s the type of fat that really makes the difference.¹

Considered ‘good’ fats, unsaturated fats are found in foods like nuts, seeds, avocados, oily fish, vegetable oils and margarine. They comprise of monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats (omega-3 and omega-6).

These types of healthy fats can help improve cholesterol levels by reducing your body’s bad cholesterol (known as ‘low density lipoprotein’ (LDL) cholesterol) and increasing the good cholesterol (known as ‘high density lipoprotein’ (HDL) cholesterol). In turn, this can lower your risk of heart disease and stroke.

Saturated fats are the not-so-good types. They’re found in things like deep fried foods, processed meats, coconut oil, palm oil, the fat on meat, chocolate, pastries and (you guessed it) butter.

In fact, butter is about 50% saturated fat and 4% trans-fat. Meanwhile, margarine contains only around 15% saturated fat.²

Along with trans fats, saturated fats have a negative effect on your health. They can increase your risk of heart disease by raising your bad LDL cholesterol.

Trans fat is a type of unsaturated fat that can be found naturally in foods like butter, beef and lamb. It can also be made by processing or super heating oils or fats during food production.

Trans fat can be found in margarine, but in Australia this tends to be in very low levels, if at all. When you’re buying margarine, you’ll be able to find one that’s made from olive oil (or a vegetable-based oil, like canola) that contains less than 1% (or less than one gram per 100g) of trans-fat.

If you’re someone who has high cholesterol, eating butter can raise your bad LDL cholesterol levels even further. So, butter might not be the best option for you.

If you decide to go the margarine route, it’s important that you check the nutrition label to ensure that it’s low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat, and that it has minimal (or no) trans fats.

The real winner, though, is ditching both and going for an alternative option. You might swap in avocado or hummus when you’re crafting your next sandwich masterpiece. Or you might consider using a natural nut or seed butter (which are less-processed alternatives to margarine) the next time you’re spreading onto toast.