How Much Saturated Fat Should You Eat?

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends getting no more than 10% of your energy from saturated fat and no more than 1% from trans fat, within a total fat intake of 30% of energy or less. On a 2,000 kcal day, 10% is 200 kcal, or about 22 g of saturated fat. What you eat instead matters as much as the limit: the benefit comes from replacing saturated fat with unsaturated fats or fibre-rich carbohydrates, not with refined starch and sugar.

This article is general information, not medical advice.

What the Guidelines Say

• WHO (2023). Its guideline on saturated and trans fatty acids, for everyone 2 years and older, says fat should be mainly unsaturated, with at most 10% of energy from saturated fat and at most 1% from trans fat, counting both industrially produced and ruminant (from meat and dairy) trans fat. It names the replacements: polyunsaturated fats, monounsaturated fats from plant sources, or carbohydrates from foods with naturally occurring fibre, such as whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and pulses.
• American Heart Association (2017). Its presidential advisory (Sacks and colleagues) concluded strongly that lowering saturated fat and replacing it with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats, lowers cardiovascular disease, as part of an overall healthy pattern such as DASH or the Mediterranean diet.

The Dietary Reference Intakes set no RDA, AI, or UL for saturated or trans fat; see What Do the RDA, AI, and UL Mean?

What the Evidence Shows

• Trials. A 2020 Cochrane review (Hooper and colleagues) of 15 randomized trials with about 56,000 people found that cutting saturated fat for at least two years reduced combined cardiovascular events by 17%, with moderate-quality evidence, and greater cuts brought greater benefit. It found little or no effect on death from any cause or from cardiovascular disease. Replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat or carbohydrate both looked useful.
• The replacement. The AHA’s advisory found that trials replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated vegetable oil cut cardiovascular disease by about 30%, while replacing it with mostly refined carbohydrates and sugars didn’t. Swapping saturated for unsaturated fat lowers LDL cholesterol, a cause of atherosclerosis.
• The dispute. Some researchers argue the limit is outdated. In a 2020 review, Astrup and colleagues argued that recent meta-analyses found no benefit of cutting saturated fat on cardiovascular disease or total mortality, and that foods rich in it, such as whole-fat dairy, unprocessed meat, and dark chocolate, aren’t linked to higher risk. Major guidelines haven’t adopted that view, but it’s a reason the evidence on particular foods is less settled than on the nutrient.

Turning It Into Grams

A gram of fat yields about 9 kcal, so:

saturated fat limit (g) = daily energy (kcal) × 10% ÷ 9

That’s about 17 g at 1,500 kcal, 22 g at 2,000 kcal, and 28 g at 2,500 kcal. For trans fat, 1% is about 2 g at 2,000 kcal.

Following It in Kaizora

Dietary Saturated Fat, Dietary Trans Fat, Dietary Total Fat, and the unsaturated fats come from the foods you log on Food Log, Cronometer’s import, or Apple Health’s export, which has saturated but not trans fat. There’s no default range, since the DRIs set none, so add a habit in grams, such as at most a number of grams of saturated fat a day, from your usual energy intake. Break a day’s saturated fat down by food from its chart to find where most of it comes from, and on Correlations, chart it beside Dietary Polyunsaturated Fat to see whether a change is a swap or simply less fat.

The Short Version

• The WHO’s limits: under 10% of energy from saturated fat and under 1% from trans fat.
• At 2,000 kcal, that’s about 22 g of saturated fat and 2 g of trans fat.
• Replace saturated fat with unsaturated fats or fibre-rich carbohydrates, not refined ones.
• Cutting saturated fat reduced cardiovascular events in trials, but not deaths, and some researchers dispute the limit for particular foods.

Sources

• World Health Organization, Saturated fatty acid and trans-fatty acid intake for adults and children: WHO guideline (2023), and its news release, WHO updates guidelines on fats and carbohydrates.
• Sacks FM et al., “Dietary fats and cardiovascular disease: a presidential advisory from the American Heart Association,” Circulation 136, no. 3 (2017). doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000000510
• Hooper L et al., “Reduction in saturated fat intake for cardiovascular disease,” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2020, no. 8: CD011737. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD011737.pub3
• Astrup A et al., “Saturated fats and health: a reassessment and proposal for food-based recommendations,” Journal of the American College of Cardiology 76, no. 7 (2020): 844–857. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2020.05.077