Brummel and Brown delivers roughly half the calories and a fraction of the saturated fat found in an equal serving of butter, which gives it a measurable edge for people trying to manage cholesterol or reduce saturated fat intake. But “healthier” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. The spread is a blend of plant oils, water, and yogurt, along with emulsifiers and other additives that raise their own questions. Whether the trade-off is worth it depends on what you’re actually worried about: heart disease risk, calorie density, ingredient quality, or something else entirely.
The Saturated Fat Gap
The biggest nutritional difference between Brummel and Brown and butter comes down to saturated fat. A tablespoon of regular butter supplies about 36% of the recommended daily limit for saturated fat, while butter-blend and tub-spread products in the same market typically provide somewhere between 11% and 18% of that daily limit per tablespoon.1Public Health Nutrition. Nutrient comparisons of margarine/margarine-like products, butter blend products and butter in the US marketplace in 2020 post-FDA ban on partially hydrogenated oils Brummel and Brown lands on the lower end of that range, listing about 1.5 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon on its label. Butter packs in around 7 grams. That’s a gap that matters for your blood lipids.
Head-to-head feeding studies consistently show that butter raises total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol more than plant-based oils do. In one trial comparing butter to olive oil, butter intake led to significantly higher total and LDL cholesterol.2PubMed. Butter increased total and LDL cholesterol compared with olive oil but resulted in higher HDL cholesterol compared with a habitual diet Another study found that switching from a butter-heavy diet to vegetable-oil-based diets cut LDL cholesterol by roughly 21 to 26%.3The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Effect of diets high in butter, corn oil, or high-oleic acid sunflower oil on serum lipids and apolipoproteins in men And in people with moderately elevated cholesterol, a butter-based diet produced significantly higher total cholesterol and LDL than diets built around safflower oil.4Journal of Lipid Research. The physiological effects of coconut oil, butter, and safflower oil on lipids and lipoproteins in moderately hypercholesterolemic subjects
So by the most straightforward cholesterol metric, eating less saturated fat and more unsaturated fat is better, and Brummel and Brown moves the needle in that direction.
What the Replacement Fat Is and Why It Matters
Cutting saturated fat only helps if what replaces it is genuinely better. The main fat source in Brummel and Brown is soybean oil, a polyunsaturated-rich oil, along with some palm oil. That split matters because the type of replacement fat changes the cardiovascular math considerably.
Large cohort data show that replacing just 5% of daily calories from saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat was linked to about a 25% lower risk of coronary heart disease. Swapping in monounsaturated fat gave roughly a 15% reduction, and whole-grain carbohydrates about 9%.5PubMed Central. Saturated Fats Compared With Unsaturated Fats and Sources of Carbohydrates in Relation to Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: A Prospective Cohort Study Earlier data from the Nurses’ Health Study estimated that replacing 5% of energy from saturated fat with unsaturated fats could reduce coronary risk by over 40%, and that swapping out trans fat was even more powerful.6PubMed. Dietary fat intake and the risk of coronary heart disease in women Both clinical trials and epidemiologic studies support the idea that polyunsaturated fat, not just any calorie replacement, is the key beneficial swap.7PubMed Central. Saturated fatty acids and risk of coronary heart disease: modulation by replacement nutrients
Soybean oil is high in polyunsaturated fat, which is the category with the strongest evidence for reducing coronary risk. On that basis, the oil profile in Brummel and Brown is a reasonable substitute for butterfat. That said, the spread also contains some palm oil, which is high in palmitic acid, a saturated fat. The proportion matters, and the label suggests the overall blend still comes out well below butter’s saturated fat load.
Does the Yogurt Add Anything Real?
Brummel and Brown’s signature marketing hook is the inclusion of yogurt, which sounds like it should add protein, calcium, and probiotics. In practice, the amount of yogurt in a tablespoon of spread is tiny. The ingredient list places “nonfat yogurt” after water, oil, and modified food starch. You’re getting trace amounts at best.
Real yogurt, eaten in normal quantities, does have promising associations with metabolic health. It’s nutrient-dense, and the fermentation process creates bioactive peptides that may offer benefits beyond what plain milk provides.8PubMed Central. Yogurt and Cardiometabolic Diseases: A Critical Review of Potential Mechanisms But those findings come from studies where people eat servings of yogurt measured in cups, not the microscopic amount embedded in a tablespoon of spread. The yogurt in Brummel and Brown mostly serves a functional role: it contributes to the creamy texture and mouthfeel that makes the spread taste more like butter. Treating it as a meaningful source of calcium, protein, or probiotics would be a stretch.
If you’re choosing Brummel and Brown because you think you’re getting the health benefits of yogurt, that’s probably not a sound reason. The yogurt is a texture ingredient that happens to photograph well on the packaging.
The Trans Fat Question Is Mostly Settled
Older margarine and spread products earned a terrible reputation because they were loaded with partially hydrogenated oils, the primary industrial source of trans fats. That reputation lingers, and it’s one reason people still reach for butter on the assumption that at least it’s “natural.” But the landscape has changed dramatically.
A nationwide analysis of U.S. spreads found that by 2013, 86% of them no longer contained partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. From 2002 to 2013, trans fat content per serving dropped by about 1.5 grams on average, and the overall fat composition shifted toward more unsaturated fat.9PubMed Central. Fat composition of vegetable oil spreads and margarines in the USA in 2013: a national marketplace analysis After the FDA’s ban on partially hydrogenated oils took full effect, a follow-up analysis confirmed that all margarine, spread, and butter-blend products contained no or negligible amounts of trans fat.1Public Health Nutrition. Nutrient comparisons of margarine/margarine-like products, butter blend products and butter in the US marketplace in 2020 post-FDA ban on partially hydrogenated oils
Brummel and Brown lists 0 grams of trans fat. While trace amounts below the labeling threshold can technically exist, the product does not contain partially hydrogenated oils. The old margarine-versus-butter debate, where margarine was arguably worse because of trans fats, no longer applies to modern soft spreads.
Emulsifiers and Additives Worth Thinking About
Where butter has a very short ingredient list, typically cream and salt, Brummel and Brown’s label reads more like a chemistry experiment: soy lecithin, potassium sorbate, calcium disodium EDTA, mono- and diglycerides, lactic acid, and others. Whether any of these are genuinely harmful is an active area of research, and the evidence is more unsettled than either side of the “clean eating” debate usually admits.
Some dietary emulsifiers have attracted concern because of their effects on gut bacteria. A 2024 mouse study found that common dietary emulsifiers could promote changes in intestinal microbial diversity and induce dysbiosis.10Communications Biology. Common dietary emulsifiers promote metabolic disorders and intestinal microbiota dysbiosis in mice Research using an in vitro human gut model showed that carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate 80 had lasting detrimental effects on microbiota composition and pro-inflammatory markers, while lecithin, interestingly, did not significantly affect the microbiota.11PubMed Central. Direct impact of commonly used dietary emulsifiers on human gut microbiota That distinction matters for Brummel and Brown, since soy lecithin is one of its listed emulsifiers and appears to be one of the milder ones. Mono- and diglycerides, also present, haven’t been as thoroughly studied in this context.
The honest assessment is that these additives are generally recognized as safe by regulators at the levels found in food, but long-term effects on gut health from chronic daily exposure are still being worked out. If you use a tablespoon of spread a few times a week, the emulsifier load is trivially small. If you’re slathering it on everything because you think it’s a health food, the cumulative dose of various additives starts to become a more legitimate question.
Interesterified Fats and How They Differ from Trans Fats
When the food industry moved away from partially hydrogenated oils, it needed another way to give spreads the right texture and stability. One solution is interesterification, a process that rearranges fatty acids on the glycerol backbone of fat molecules. Many modern spreads use interesterified fats, though manufacturers rarely call them that on the label. Modified palm oil or “modified oil” in the ingredient list is a clue.
The research on interesterified fats is less settled than the research on trans fats. At relatively high intake levels, interesterified fats with saturated fatty acids in certain positions on the glycerol molecule have shown negative effects on lipoproteins, blood glucose, insulin, immune function, and liver enzymes in feeding studies.12PubMed. Replacing trans fat: the argument for palm oil with a cautionary note on interesterification The emphasis is on “relatively high intake”: most of these studies used fat loads well above what you’d get from a tablespoon of spread on your morning toast. Still, it’s a reminder that the post-trans-fat solutions aren’t automatically benign. The science is watching this space, even if the amounts in a typical diet probably aren’t cause for alarm.
Processing Contaminants in Refined Oils
One downside of refined vegetable oils that rarely makes it into the butter-versus-spread conversation is the formation of processing contaminants. When vegetable oils are refined at high temperatures, compounds called 3-MCPD esters and glycidyl esters can form. These are classified as potentially carcinogenic or genotoxic.13Microchemical Journal. Determination of 3 monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD) and 1,3-Dichloropropan-2-ol (1,3-DCP) levels in edible vegetable oils: A health risk assessment for Iranian consumers Butter and other animal fats, by contrast, typically show no detectable levels of these contaminants.14PubMed Central. Occurrence and Dietary Exposure of 3-MCPD Esters and Glycidyl Esters in Domestically and Commercially Prepared Food in Singapore
This doesn’t mean Brummel and Brown is dangerous. The levels of these contaminants in commercial oils are generally low, and regulatory agencies monitor them. But it’s a genuine mark in butter’s column that’s worth knowing about, especially for people who assume that all processing improvements since the trans fat era have been purely positive.
Sodium Is Roughly the Same
Some people assume that spreads are saltier than butter, or vice versa. In reality, the sodium content is similar. Across margarine, spread, and butter-blend categories, mean sodium per tablespoon ranges from about 3 to 4% of the daily value, which is comparable to regular salted butter at about 4% of the daily value.1Public Health Nutrition. Nutrient comparisons of margarine/margarine-like products, butter blend products and butter in the US marketplace in 2020 post-FDA ban on partially hydrogenated oils Brummel and Brown sits comfortably in that range. If sodium is your primary dietary concern, switching between butter and this spread won’t meaningfully change your intake.
The Dairy Matrix Wrinkle
Recent research has complicated the simple story that butterfat is bad because it’s saturated. The “dairy matrix” hypothesis suggests that the way fat is packaged inside dairy foods, particularly when surrounded by the milk fat globule membrane, may change how that fat affects your cholesterol. One study found that when the same amount of fat was consumed as butter versus fat enclosed by this membrane, the butter raised LDL cholesterol as expected, but the membrane-enclosed fat did not change the lipoprotein profile at all.15Nutrition Reviews. Dairy matrix: is the whole greater than the sum of the parts?
This line of research is still emerging, and it doesn’t override the large body of evidence linking saturated fat intake to higher LDL. But it does suggest that whole dairy foods like cheese and full-fat yogurt may behave differently in the body than their isolated fat content would predict. For butter specifically, the manufacturing process strips away much of the membrane structure, so butter may not get the full benefit of the dairy matrix effect. Still, the finding adds nuance: judging a food solely by its saturated fat grams on the nutrition label may miss part of the picture.
The Health Halo Problem
There’s a behavioral dimension to all of this that the nutrition label can’t capture. Products marketed as healthier tend to trigger what researchers call a “health halo”: when people perceive a food as healthier, they often eat more of it, sometimes enough to erase the caloric advantage entirely. Research on food packaging and consumption decisions has found that people consume more of foods they perceive as healthy when portions aren’t strictly controlled, essentially following a “healthy equals eat more” pattern.16ScienceDirect. Can health “halos” extend to food packaging? An investigation into food healthfulness perceptions and serving sizes on consumption decisions
Brummel and Brown is a textbook candidate for this effect. The yogurt branding, the green packaging, and the lower calorie count all signal “go ahead, use more.” If you spread it twice as thick as you would butter, you’ve consumed roughly the same calories and may have consumed more of the additives and processed oils that make the product less straightforward than it appears. The health advantage of any lower-calorie spread only exists at equal or lower serving sizes.
What Would Actually Be Better Than Either
If the question is strictly Brummel and Brown versus butter, the spread wins on saturated fat and calories while carrying some question marks around processing and additives. But framing the choice as a binary between these two products misses a wider set of options. Dietary modeling has shown that substituting canola oil for typical American fats could decrease saturated fatty acid intake by roughly 5 to 9% and dramatically improve the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, dropping it from about 10:1 to about 3:1.17PubMed. Dietary modeling shows that the substitution of canola oil for fats commonly used in the United States would increase compliance with dietary recommendations for fatty acids Olive oil offers similar benefits with a strong evidence base behind it. For cooking and drizzling, a high-quality liquid oil beats both butter and any tub spread on nearly every cardiovascular metric.
The reason people reach for a spread instead is practical: you can’t smear olive oil on toast the way you can a pat of butter or a knife-full of Brummel and Brown. For that specific use, the spread is a reasonable compromise. Just don’t mistake “better than butter” for “actually good for you.” The real competition isn’t between two products at the grocery store. It’s between the small amount of fat you put on bread and the larger pattern of fats running through the rest of your day.