Is ghee good for cholesterol? The fat numbers and how much is safe

Ghee is not a food that improves cholesterol; what matters is how much of it you eat. Four facts decide the answer.

• What it is: ghee is 100 g of fat per 100 g (USDA FoodData Central), and the ICMR-NIN Dietary Guidelines for Indians name ghee and butter as fats high in saturated fat.
• What the WHO says: adults and children should get no more than 10% of their energy from saturated fat, according to its 2023 guideline. In its place the guideline recommends polyunsaturated fat, monounsaturated fat from plants, or carbohydrate from whole grains, pulses, vegetables and fruit that keep their natural fibre. In the evidence behind the guideline, putting polyunsaturated fat, monounsaturated fat or carbohydrate in place of saturated fat lowered LDL cholesterol in adults.
• What the Indian guidelines say: ghee and butter are to be limited to 1 to 2 teaspoons a day, or left out where possible.
• What the ghee studies say: there are few of them, and they do not agree with each other.

So is ghee bad for cholesterol? In large amounts, or on top of a diet already rich in butter, paneer, fried snacks and sweets, yes: it pushes saturated fat past the limit. A measured teaspoon inside the day's cooking fat is a different matter for a healthy adult. If your LDL is already high, or you have heart disease or diabetes, keep ghee small and let your doctor set the amount.

Per 100 g, ghee gives 900 kcal and 100 g of fat, with 0 g protein and 0 g carbohydrate (USDA FoodData Central). Groundnut oil and mustard oil each give 884 kcal and 100 g of fat. Spoon for spoon, ghee and these oils cost about the same calories; what differs is the kind of fat.

Ghee is mostly saturated fat. The ICMR-NIN guidelines describe butter and ghee as sources of cholesterol and saturated fat, along with some monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat, and the 2022 trial in the British Journal of Nutrition calls ghee predominantly saturated. Mustard oil sits at the other end: Poddar and colleagues, reviewing it in 2022, call it a liquid oil with little saturated fat. IFCT 2017 lists ghee and both oils only in its fatty-acid tables, so the energy and fat figures here are the USDA ones, and this page quotes no grams of saturated fat.

Does ghee have cholesterol? Yes. The ICMR-NIN guidelines place cholesterol in animal-source foods alone, and ghee is one of them. The USDA entry we use prints no cholesterol figure for ghee, so we quote no milligram number. The WHO guideline used here sets its limits on saturated and trans fat.

Per spoon: a level teaspoon, taken as 5 g, is 45 kcal and 5 g of fat; a tablespoon, taken as 15 g, is 135 kcal and 15 g of fat. The full table is on 1 spoon ghee calories.

Per 100 g raw, edible portion. Composition: USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy), FDC ID 171314, NDB 1323; USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy), FDC ID 171410, NDB 4042; USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy), FDC ID 172337, NDB 4583. — means not reported. These are average values for the food; the label on a pack gives the values for that product.

Three of the papers behind this page measured blood fats after ghee was eaten, in people or in rats, and they do not point the same way.

• Ghee against olive oil (2022): a randomised crossover trial in the British Journal of Nutrition asked thirty healthy men and women to include ghee or olive oil in their usual diet for 4 weeks each. Compared with olive oil, the ghee diet raised fasting apolipoprotein B and non-HDL cholesterol. On LDL cholesterol, the total-to-HDL ratio, fasting triglycerides, glucose and insulin, the two diets did not differ significantly. The authors read this as further evidence for replacing fats high in saturated fat with fats high in unsaturated fat.
• Before and after (2022): a study in Bioinformation measured fasting lipids in healthy volunteers before and after they ate cow ghee. Across all subjects, total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol fell significantly; in the group with normal lipids there was no significant change. The authors conclude that cow ghee is not harmful. The abstract gives neither the amount of ghee nor the number of volunteers, and describes no comparison group.
• Rats, plus a review (2010): Sharma and colleagues, writing in AYU, gave inbred rats feed containing 10% ghee for 4 weeks. Serum triglycerides went up, while the change in total cholesterol was not significant. In the review part of the paper, the authors read the earlier literature as not supporting a conclusion that moderate ghee intake harms the general population; the rat experiment itself did not test that.

So the one controlled trial in people points up, the before-and-after study points down and the animal experiment sits in between. All three worked with healthy volunteers or with rats, not with patients. A 2024 review by Kataria and Singh notes that modern research on the health benefits of ghee is limited. The WHO guideline rests on systematic reviews of trials and observational studies of saturated fat as a whole, which is why it carries more weight than any single ghee study.

India's national dietary guidelines, from ICMR-NIN, put it plainly: "Limit ghee or butter to just 1 to 2 teaspoons/day or avoid, if possible." They count ghee inside the day's visible fat, their term for added fats such as vegetable oils and butter, which they cap at 4 to 10 teaspoons (20 to 50 g) a day depending on how much energy a person needs. They also call saturated fat intake high when more than 10 g a day of it comes from ghee, butter, palm oil or coconut oil on a 2000 kcal diet.

None of the sources we cite sets a separate figure for people whose cholesterol is already high; that number has to come from your doctor. For scale, two level teaspoons of ghee come to 90 kcal and 10 g of fat.

Use ghee where you can taste it:

• no more than a teaspoon per person in the final tadka of dal tadka, with the masala cooked in oil instead of the recipe's ghee;
• a thin smear on a hot roti instead of a spoonful poured over rice;
• half a teaspoon stirred into khichdi or sabzi at the end, after cooking in oil.

Measure with a spoon and never pour from the jar. Sweets are where ghee adds up: moong dal halwa and laddu are made with ghee by the ladle, not the teaspoon, so keep them for occasions.

Better for the bulk of cooking: plant oils, apart from coconut and palm oil, which the ICMR-NIN guidelines list with ghee and butter as sources of saturated fat. In the WHO guideline, polyunsaturated fat and plant-source monounsaturated fat are the fats recommended in place of saturated fat. In an Indian kitchen that means an oil such as groundnut or mustard for sabzi, frying and pickles, with ghee kept as the flavouring spoon. Cold-pressed (kachi ghani) oils are obtained by mechanical pressing without heat, the ICMR-NIN guidelines note. See cold pressed oil vs refined oil for how the oil is made, cold-pressed groundnut oil and mustard oil vs sunflower oil for the choice between oils, and ghee vs oil for when each one fits.

No better, no worse: cow ghee, buffalo ghee, A2 ghee and bilona ghee are all milk fat. The label tells you about the animal, the milk and the method, as the A2 cow ghee guide and cow ghee vs buffalo ghee explain; no source we cite shows that one kind acts differently on blood cholesterol. Butter is no way out either: the Indian guidelines put butter and ghee under the same limit.

Worse: vanaspati, bakery shortening and other partially hydrogenated fats, which may contain trans fat. The WHO guideline recommends reducing trans fat to 1% of total energy intake, and the Indian guidelines say to avoid vanaspati as a cooking medium. Oil that has been heated again and again belongs here too.

• Ghee on top of everything else: adding spoons of ghee to a diet that already has butter, cream, paneer and fried food.
• Morning ghee fads: ghee in warm water, tea or coffee on an empty stomach adds fat and calories, and none of the sources we cite tested ghee taken this way.
• Reading the label as a health claim: A2 tells you about the milk, and bilona and cultured about how the ghee was made. No source we cite shows that any of them changes what the fat does to cholesterol.
• Burning and reusing: do not let ghee smoke or darken, and do not fry in the same fat again and again. The ICMR-NIN guidelines warn that repeated heating of cooking oils generates harmful oxidation compounds, and the 2010 AYU paper lists the cholesterol oxidation products of heated ghee among the reasons ghee has been linked to heart disease.
• Adulterated ghee: a 2024 review lists vanaspati, animal fats and synthetic materials among the things ghee is mixed with. No home test finds these; the one household check, for added starch, is in how to check ghee purity.
• Stopping medicine: never stop a statin or change a dose because of something you read about ghee.

If you have high LDL cholesterol or triglycerides, diabetes, heart disease, a family history of early heart disease, or you take a statin, do not set your ghee allowance from a web page. Take your latest lipid report to your doctor and ask how much saturated fat fits your day. A dietitian can turn that into spoons of ghee and oil and servings of milk, curd and paneer.

Recheck your lipid profile when your doctor asks, and judge by the report, not by how you feel. For your own numbers, talk to your doctor or dietitian.

Is ghee bad for cholesterol?

In large amounts, yes. Ghee is mostly saturated fat, which WHO advises cutting to 10% of daily energy; the evidence behind that advice shows LDL cholesterol falling when unsaturated fat takes its place. ICMR-NIN's guidelines go further for ghee and butter: 1 to 2 teaspoons a day at most, and none if you can manage. With high LDL, ask your doctor how much fits you.

Does ghee have cholesterol?

Yes. Ghee is made from milk fat, and cholesterol occurs only in foods of animal origin. The ICMR-NIN guidelines name butter and ghee as sources of both cholesterol and saturated fat. Our reference entry (USDA FoodData Central) prints no cholesterol figure for ghee, so we give no milligram number here.

Does A2 ghee increase cholesterol?

None of the studies we cite tested A2 ghee on its own, so we have no evidence that it affects cholesterol any differently from other ghee. A2 names the kind of milk the ghee was made from, while the ghee itself is fat and, like all ghee, mostly saturated. Choose it for taste and method, and keep the amount small.

Is ghee better than oil?

For cholesterol, no: the WHO guideline asks people to replace saturated fat with unsaturated fat, which means oils such as groundnut or mustard for everyday cooking. For flavour in tadka, on rotis and in sweets, ghee is the one to use. Calories are nearly equal: 45 kcal a teaspoon for ghee and 44 kcal for groundnut or mustard oil.

How much ghee per day is safe with high cholesterol?

None of the sources we cite gives a separate number for high cholesterol, so the amount has to come from your doctor. The general advice in India's dietary guidelines is no more than a teaspoon or two of ghee or butter a day, and none where it can be avoided. One level teaspoon is 5 g and 45 kcal; use groundnut or mustard oil for the rest of the cooking.

Is ghee healthy?

In small amounts, as part of a varied diet, ghee is a traditional cooking fat that can fit a healthy plate. It is also 900 kcal per 100 g and mostly saturated fat, so more is not better. India's dietary guidelines say to keep ghee or butter within 1 to 2 teaspoons a day, and to avoid them where possible. See ghee benefits.