Plant Butter vs. Butter: Which Is Better For You?

If you’ve walked down the dairy aisle at the grocery store lately, you know that the butter options are now much more complicated than simply choosing between salted and unsalted butter. 

With options including grass-fed butter, European-style, cultured butter, and plant-based or vegan butter, it can be hard to decide—especially when you’re not sure whether cow butter or plant-based alternatives are better for you. 

Of course, if you are vegan or cannot consume any dairy products, then plant-based butter is the choice for you. But if you’re wondering how plant-based butter and regular butter compare when it comes to nutritional value, ingredients, taste, and cost, this is the article for you. 

Plant Butter Vs. Butter: Which Is Better?

The past few years have seen great strides in vegan or plant-based foods—and butter is no exception.

What used to be a space that only sold trans-fat-filled margarine and I-can’t-believe-it’ s-not-butter “butters” has evolved into entire shelves full of vegan butters made of ingredients like coconut oil, cashew butter, oat milk (yep), and more. 

But are they actually healthy? Let’s find out. 

Vegan Butter Vs. Dairy Butter Nutrition

The question of whether or not real butter is healthy or unhealthy always comes back to saturated fats. 

Although the fat-phobic craze of the 90s and 00s has (mostly) died down, there’s still that pesky debate about saturated fat that has yet to be solved.

It’s known that monounsaturated fats like olive oil are healthier for us than saturated fats. But saturated fats may not be as bad as we once thought. It’s true that some people are genetically more susceptible to the negative effects of saturated fats, which can lead to unhealthy levels of LDL cholesterol.^1,2

However, most people do fine with a moderate amount of saturated fat (keyword: moderate), which is what you’d find in a serving of real butter. 

On the other hand, vegan butter is almost always made predominantly with vegetable or seed oils, which contain more unsaturated fats but can vary in terms of inflammatory potential. Plant-based butters are lower in saturated fat but still contain some (usually 3-4 grams per serving).

For example, olive oil is great, while canola and soybean oils are more inflammatory and less recommended. While some vegan butter uses olive or coconut oil, others (like Earth Balance) use a blend of canola, soybean, flax, and palm oils.

Vegetable oils like canola and soybean are predominantly omega-6 fatty acids, which are pro-inflammatory (compared to the anti-inflammatory nature of omega-3 fats).³

Let’s compare the nutritional facts of two popular types of butter (real and vegan). Butter is not a source of carbohydrates, fiber, or protein, so we did not include those. 

*Based on 1 serving of Kerrygold Salted Butter

**Based on 1 serving of Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread 

As you can see, the calories, sodium, and total fat are almost identical between the two. Variations arise regarding types of fat, with Kerrygold Irish Butter containing more saturated fat. However, there is not an immense difference, with just 5 grams more. 

Plus, Kerrygold is grass-fed butter, which lends itself to the vitamin A found in it. Grass-fed cows obviously eat more grass, which is high in beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A. This allows the butter we get from said cows to be richer in vitamin A. 

Grass-fed butter also contains vitamin K2, a rarer form of vitamin K that is beneficial for bone, heart, and metabolic health.⁴ 

Vegan Butter Vs. Butter Ingredients

There’s no doubt that real butter is the winner when it comes to ingredient quality, as you should just find one or two ingredients: pasteurized cream plus salt if it’s a salted version.

Plant-based butter, on the other hand, has to use culinary magic to create that buttery flavor and rich texture we all know and love. 

Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread contains the following ingredients: 

Palm oil, canola oil, soybean oil, flaxseed oil, water, less than 2% of: salt, natural flavor, pea protein isolate, sunflower lecithin, olive oil, lactic acid, annatto extract (for color).

Although not all of those ingredients are “bad,” some of them are less nutritious than simply pasteurized cream. 

Other vegan butter brands use ingredients that are a bit less processed, such as Miyokos Creamery Salted Plant Milk Butter, which contains: 

Organic coconut oil, organic cultured cashew milk (filtered water, organic cashews, cultures), filtered water, organic sunflower oil, organic sunflower lecithin, and sea salt. 

Vegan Butter Vs. Butter Inflammatory Potential

Processed seed oils are high in omega-6 fatty acids and extremely susceptible to oxidation, which is associated with cellular and DNA damage.

A high intake of these oils may increase the risk of inflammation in the body, which is linked to chronic disease development. 

As mentioned, butter is higher in saturated fats, and plant-based butter is higher in unsaturated fats. While unsaturated fats (especially monounsaturated fats or MUFAs) are generally beneficial for health, it gets a little murky when it comes to polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs).

For a brief nutritional biochem lesson, saturated fats do not have double bonds and can stack upon each other. This “stackability” is what allows saturated fat-containing foods—like butter, for instance—to stay solid at room temperature.

When fat is fully saturated, it means that there is no room for any other molecules to bind to it, leading saturated fats to be highly stable structures. Saturated fats are most commonly found in animal products, such as butter, dairy, and meat, as well as coconut and palm oils. 

MUFAs—found largely in olive oil and avocado oil—are somewhat stable, as they have one double bond, which means there’s one open space for another molecule to bind to it. Commonly, free radicals will bind to that open spot, which are harmful molecules that damage cells and accelerate aging.

Lastly, PUFAs have multiple double bonds, making them highly unstable and prone to oxidation when exposed to heat or light. Instability and oxidation are the primary reasons why industrially produced seed oils can cause inflammation in the body. 

The process of making vegetable or seed oils includes mechanical pressing, bathing in a hexane solution, degumming, bleaching, and deodorizing before it can become ready to eat. These steps introduce high heat or light, causing the oils to oxidize or become rancid, even before they hit the grocery store shelves. 

Plus, PUFAs include omega-6 fatty acids. Although they are essential fats, our modern society is eating way too many of them. 

Excessive omega-6 intake can alter our cell membranes, which are made up of PUFAs. A diet high in omega-6 fats—especially oxidized omega-6 fats—but low in omega-3’s can lead to cell membranes being primarily composed of oxidized and pro-inflammatory fats.⁵ 

Depending on which brand you buy, vegan butter can contain several vegetable oils with high omega-6 profiles and inflammatory potential.

We recommend the brand Miyokos, as they primarily use coconut oil and cashews as the fat in their vegan butter. 

That said, real butter doesn’t get off scot-free when it comes to inflammation.

Dairy-based butter can be inflammatory because it’s high in saturated fats, which can trigger inflammatory responses in some people. However, not all studies have shown this connection.⁶

However, butter also contains butyrate (butyric acid), a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) that can help reduce inflammation, especially in the gut.⁷

Grass-fed butter, specifically, also contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a healthy type of trans fat that exhibits anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic, and anti-obesity properties.^7,8

If you’re going to choose real butter, opt for grass-fed butter like Kerrygold, Vital Farms, or Maple Hill Creamery. 

Vegan Butter Vs. Butter Taste

Taste is highly subjective, but you really can’t beat the taste of real butter—especially salted, grass-fed butter. 

However, some plant-based butter brands are really stepping it up and getting pretty close to the taste and texture of real butter. 

For a full look at our reviews of the best plant-based butter brands, head to this article. Two of the best-tasting vegan butters we tried are Miyokos European Style Salted Plant Milk Butter and Miyokos Salted Oat Milk Butter, which had a surprisingly tangy flavor reminiscent of real cultured butter.

Vegan Butter Vs. Butter Cost

The cost of both real butter and plant-based butter can vary widely. Here’s a quick look at some of the prices of the most popular brands of butter.

As with most meat and dairy products, grass-fed and organic will cost more. 

For the most part, real butter seems to be less expensive than plant-based butter on a per-ounce basis—but grass-fed and organic real butter is mostly on par with the price of vegan butter. 

The Bottom Line

There are pros and cons to both real butter and plant-based butter. 

However, the inflammatory nature of excess omega-6 seed oils found in most vegan butter has us leaning toward real butter as the winner.

Real butter also has a better taste than vegan butter, and grass-fed butter has the additional benefits of healthy fats like CLA, the short-chain fatty acid butyrate, and vitamins A and K2.

While real butter does contain more saturated fatty acids than vegan butter, most people do fine with this type of fat in moderation. As with any food, you wouldn’t want to overconsume it and eat an entire stick in one day. 

As dairy butter is the oldest source of animal fat in human diet history, dating back 8,000 years, it’s likely that there are other aspects of our modern diet that we should focus on changing (i.e., added sugar and ultra-processed foods) to improve health rather than forgoing delicious grass-fed butter.That said, if you prefer plant-based butter, are vegan, or have a dairy allergy, there are some healthier choices, such as Miyokos, which uses predominantly coconut oil and cashew butter.

Vegan Butter Vs. Butter FAQs