How Much Cholesterol Should I Have Per Day? - Healthline

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How Much Cholesterol Should I Be Having Each Day to Be Healthy?

Medically reviewed by Katherine Marengo LDN, R.D. — Written by Heather Grey — Updated on December 10, 2024

Guidelines
Food and cholesterol
Example chart
Takeaway

Key takeaways

Instead of focusing on a specific daily cholesterol limit, current guidelines emphasize limiting saturated fats to less than 10% of your daily calorie intake.
To maintain healthy cholesterol levels, it’s important to minimize your consumption of saturated fats, trans fats, and added sugars, while prioritizing unsaturated fats.
While dietary cholesterol intake doesn’t have specific limits, it’s mainly found in animal-based foods. Therefore, choosing cholesterol-free foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can help support a balanced diet.

There are no specific recommended limits for the amount of dietary cholesterol you consume from food each day. But it’s still important to pay attention to the food you eat to keep your body’s cholesterol levels healthy.

Doctors recommend that you limit the amount of harmful saturated fats, trans fats, and added sugars in your diet. You should also keep an eye on your cholesterol intake since foods that are high in cholesterol also tend to be high in saturated fats, especially if you have a high risk of heart disease.

What are the cholesterol guidelines each day?

Your body needs cholesterol to help build cells and produce certain hormones. Your body produces all the cholesterol it needs in the liver and intestines from fats, sugars, and proteins.

But problems arise when you eat too many saturated and trans fats. These cause your liver to produce too much LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, which winds up in artery-clogging deposits.

For this reason, experts generally recommend avoiding trans fats altogether and limiting saturated fats to 10% or less of your total calorie intake.

The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans lays out the following dietary recommendations for keeping your body’s cholesterol levels low:

Cholesterol	Eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible, but there are no specific limits.
Saturated fats	Limit these fats to less than 10% of the calories each day.
Unsaturated fats	No upper limit for a healthy limit. Replace saturated fats with these as often as possible.
Transfats	Eat little to no synthetic trans fats, as they’re associated with inflammation.

Learn more about different types of fat and how they affect cholesterol levels and overall health.

Nutrition labels matter

Nutrition labels on foods tell you how much of each nutrient or fat is in the item, based on the recommended serving size. The numbers and percentages are written for a 2,000-calorie/day eating plan. You’ll find a label on the back of packaged, canned, or bottled items that says “Nutrition Facts.”

You can learn from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about reading a nutrition label, including cholesterol levels and other important aspects of what food and drink products contain and how they may affect your health.

Foods to eat and avoid for healthy cholesterol levels

These may be the foods to consider eating or avoiding each day, as it relates to the amount of cholesterol in your eating plan.

Cholesterol itself is only found in animal-based foods, including:

meat
dairy products
seafood
egg yolks
butter

Shrimp is high in cholesterol but very low in saturated fat. See why you can enjoy it as part of a heart-healthy diet.

Cholesterol-free foods

There’s no cholesterol in foods like:

fruits
vegetables
grains
nuts

These are also all part of a healthy, well-balanced diet.

Foods containing fats

Foods that are high in saturated fats and should be limited include:

red meat and pork
baked goods, such as cakes and cookies
cheese
pizza
ice cream
processed meats, such as sausages
fried foods

Foods containing unhealthy trans fats, which should be avoided, include:

fried foods
packaged foods with “hydrogenated oils” in the ingredients list
baked goods, such as cakes, pies, and cookies
margarine
microwave popcorn
frosting

Foods that contain healthy unsaturated fats, which you should eat, include:

olive, peanut, canola, safflower, and sunflower oils
avocados
most nuts, but especially walnuts
most seeds, including sunflower, chia, and hemp seeds

How much cholesterol and fat are in certain foods?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture offers a national food nutrient database, offering specific nutritional information about many different foods, ingredients, and drinks. These are just some examples of the relative amounts of cholesterol and fats found in your food.

Here are some examples of foods and approximately how much cholesterol and fats you can find in each:

Food	Cholesterol	Saturated fat	Trans fat	Unsaturated fat
1 large egg	186 mg	1.6 g	0 g	2.7 g
1 avocado	0 mg	4.3 g	0 g	23.4 g
95% lean ground beef (1/4 lb)	70 mg	2.5 g	.3 g	2.5 g
70% lean ground beef (1/4 lb)	88 mg	13.3 g	2.1 g	16.8 g
Skinless chicken breast (6 oz)	124 mg	1 g	0.01 g	1.9 g
Salted butter (1 tbsp)	31 mg	7.3 g	0.5 g	3.4 g
Extra virgin olive oil (1 tbsp)	0 mg	2 g	0 g	11.5 g
Vanilla ice cream (1 cup)	58 mg	9 g	0 g	4.5 g
Low-fat yogurt (1 cup)	15 mg	2.5 g	0 g	1.1 g
Uncooked shrimp (3 oz)	137 mg	0.1 g	0 g	0.2 g
Plain walnuts (1/2 cup)	0 mg	3.1 g	0 g	28.1 g

Here are more cholesterol-lowering foods for you to enjoy.

Tips for lowering cholesterol from foods and drinks

Pay attention to the saturated and trans fats on your food labels, as well as added sugars. The less of these you consume, the better. No more than 10 percent of your daily calories should come from either saturated fats or added sugars.
Don’t worry about eating enough cholesterol. Your body makes enough whether or not you consume it.
Eat more healthy, unsaturated fats. Try replacing butter with extra virgin olive oil in cooking, buy lean cuts of meat, and snack on nuts and seeds instead of french fries or processed snack foods.

You can read more about other ways to lower your cholesterol levels, beyond managing the foods and drinks you enjoy each day.

The takeaway

Doctors typically follow recent cholesterol guidelines that recommend limiting saturated fats, instead of targeting a specific number each day. Generally, that means limiting these unhealthy fats to 10% or less of what you eat each day.

These can be important in managing cholesterol levels, and that may be even more important for people who are at higher risk for cardiovascular events or other health conditions.

How we reviewed this article:

SourcesHistoryHealthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations. We only use quality, credible sources to ensure content accuracy and integrity. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy.

2020-2025 dietary guidelines. (2021). https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/Dietary_Guidelines_for_Americans-2020-2025.pdf
Added sugars. (2024). https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/sugar/added-sugars
Blood cholesterol. (2024). https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/blood-cholesterol/living-with
High cholesterol facts. (2024). https://www.cdc.gov/cholesterol/data-research/facts-stats/
Saturated fat. (2024). https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/fats/saturated-fats
Snetsellar LG, et al. (2021). Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025: Understanding the Scientific Process, Guidelines, and Key Recommendations. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34987271/
What is cholesterol? (2024). https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/cholesterol/about-cholesterol

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Medically reviewed by Katherine Marengo LDN, R.D. — Written by Heather Grey — Updated on December 10, 2024

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Key takeaways

What are the cholesterol guidelines each day?

Nutrition labels matter

Foods to eat and avoid for healthy cholesterol levels

Cholesterol-free foods

Foods containing fats

How much cholesterol and fat are in certain foods?

Tips for lowering cholesterol from foods and drinks

The takeaway

How we reviewed this article:

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