Ghee and avocado oil are both almost pure fat, but they sit at opposite ends of the fat spectrum. On USDA figures ghee is about 62 g saturated fat per 100 g, while avocado oil is about 71 g monounsaturated fat, most of it oleic acid, and under 12 g saturated. The rest of the choice comes down to processing, flavour and the dish.
This is a comparison, not a verdict. If you are choosing between them because of a medical condition, follow your doctor's advice rather than any general comparison, including this one.
At a glance
- On USDA figures ghee is about 62 g of saturated fat per 100 g; avocado oil is about 71 g monounsaturated, mostly oleic acid, and under 12 g saturated.
- Avocado oil is traded as extra virgin, virgin, pure (bleached and deodorised) and mixed grades; ICMR-NIN notes that refining does not change an oil's fatty acids, and Codex added avocado oil to its vegetable oil standard in November 2024.
- Both fats are often said to smoke at about 250 °C, but no checkable laboratory measurement was found for either.
- A UC Davis test found at least 82 per cent of 22 retail avocado oils stale or mixed with other oils; a 2025 Mexican study found only 40 per cent of 25 samples met the fatty acid standards.
- ICMR-NIN counts both inside one visible-fat allowance of 27 to 30 g a day on 2,000 kcal; choose by flavour and dish, and ask your doctor about health.
What is the main difference between ghee and avocado oil?
Ghee is milk fat with almost all its water and milk solids cooked off. Avocado oil is pressed or extracted from the flesh of the avocado fruit. Both are close to 100 per cent fat. The real difference is the type of fat: ghee is mostly saturated, avocado oil mostly monounsaturated, and only ghee carries cholesterol and vitamin A.
How are ghee and avocado oil made?
Ghee is butter clarified by slow heating until the water is gone and the milk solids separate out. Avocado oil comes in grades. Virgin oil is extracted from fresh fruit by mechanical means only. Refined oil is processed with heat or chemicals to remove flaws, which also strips its pigments, so it turns pale yellow.
A 2025 study of commercial avocado oils by researchers at Tecnológico de Monterrey sets out the grades used in the trade, drawing on earlier work:
- Extra virgin: mechanical extraction, no solvents, high-quality fruit, temperatures below 50°C.
- Virgin: the same methods, but from lower-quality fruit with small areas of rot or damage.
- Pure: fruit quality matters less, because the oil is bleached and deodorised.
- Mixed: avocado oil blended with other oils, such as olive or canola, and sold as a blend.
Standards for avocado oil are recent. The same paper notes that Mexico approved a national avocado oil standard only in 2021. In November 2024 the FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission added avocado oil to its Standard for Named Vegetable Oils, setting quality and purity criteria and, in WHO's words, "a basis for determining the authenticity of the product".
ICMR-NIN's Dietary Guidelines for Indians describe the same trade-off for vegetable oils in general. Refining does not change an oil's fatty acid composition, but it removes odour and small amounts of minor components such as antioxidants and phytosterols. In mechanically pressed and cold-pressed oils, antioxidants and phytonutrients are preserved.
How do the fats in ghee and avocado oil compare?
On USDA FoodData Central figures, saturated fat makes up about 66 per cent of ghee's fatty acids and about 12 per cent of avocado oil's. Monounsaturated fat runs the other way: about 30 per cent in ghee against about 74 per cent in avocado oil. Avocado oil also has more polyunsaturated fat, mostly linoleic acid.
For ghee we use USDA's record for anhydrous butter oil, which has a full fatty acid breakdown; the same figures appear in our ghee and olive oil comparison and our ghee nutrition guide. USDA's avocado oil record names no grade, and it does not list cholesterol, vitamin E or any saturated fatty acid other than palmitic and stearic.
| Per 100 g (USDA FoodData Central) | Ghee (anhydrous butter oil) | Avocado oil |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 876 kcal | 884 kcal |
| Total fat | 99.5 g | 100 g |
| Saturated fat | 61.9 g | 11.6 g |
| Monounsaturated fat | 28.7 g | 70.6 g |
| Polyunsaturated fat | 3.7 g | 13.5 g |
| Oleic acid (C18:1) | 25.0 g | 67.9 g |
| Palmitic acid (C16:0) | 26.2 g | 10.9 g |
| Linoleic acid (C18:2) | 2.3 g | 12.5 g |
| Butyric acid (C4:0) | 3.2 g | not listed |
| Cholesterol | 256 mg | not listed |
| Vitamin A (RAE) | 840 µg | 0 µg |
The percentages above count only the fatty acids: 61.9 out of 94.3 g for ghee, and 11.6 out of 95.7 g for avocado oil. Cholesterol is missing from the avocado record, but ICMR-NIN states that cholesterol is found only in animal-source foods.
USDA weighs a tablespoon of avocado oil at 14 g and one of butter oil at 12.8 g. That gives about 1.6 g of saturated fat in a spoon of avocado oil and about 7.9 g in a spoon of ghee. Calories are close: about 124 kcal against 112 kcal, almost all of the difference coming from the heavier spoon.
Which has the higher smoke point, ghee or avocado oil?
We cannot give a checked answer. Avocado oil is often described as smoking above 250°C, and ghee at about 250°C, but neither figure we found traces back to a laboratory measurement we could open. Smoke point also varies within one kind of oil, so a single number for "avocado oil" hides real differences between refined and virgin grades.
The avocado figure appears, for example, in a 2019 laboratory study of avocado oil's oxidative stability, which says in its introduction that the oil has "a high smoke point that is above 250 °C". The study did not measure smoke point itself and gives no method behind that line. The ghee figure comes from a 2024 review of ghee research, which is also not a measurement. Our article on ghee's smoke point and when it matters explains where heat headroom counts in Indian cooking.
What has been measured carefully is how much smoke point moves with an oil's condition. In a 2025 University of Barcelona study of 48 virgin olive oils, free fatty acid content was the main factor: the more free acidity, the lower the smoke point. That was olive oil, not avocado oil, so it shows the principle, not an avocado figure. It is why we do not set one number against another here.
Which works better in Indian cooking?
Choose by flavour and job. Ghee is worth using where its taste carries: a tadka poured on at the end, a spoon over dal or rice, halwa and laddoo. Refined avocado oil has little flavour of its own, so it suits dishes where the spices should lead. Virgin avocado oil tastes grassy and buttery, which suits fewer Indian dishes.
A practical way to split the work:
- Keep ghee where you can taste it. Finishing tadkas, rice, roti, dal and sweets are where a good ghee shows its difference.
- Use a neutral oil where flavour does not matter. Refined avocado oil, or any other neutral oil you already use, does the background work of a sabzi or a curry base.
- Save virgin avocado oil for dishes that suit its taste. UC Davis researchers describe fresh virgin oil as grassy, buttery and a little like mushrooms: pleasant in a salad or over grilled vegetables, out of place in kheer.
- Do not fry twice in the same fat. ICMR-NIN advises against frying again in oil already used for frying; filtered, it may go into a curry within a day or two, and used oil should not be stored long.
ICMR-NIN also suggests sautéing, steaming, grilling, boiling or baking in place of frying, whichever fat you choose.
Is avocado oil healthier than ghee?
We do not make that call. The table shows two very different fats, but composition alone cannot say which suits a particular person. What the guideline bodies say is about saturated fat in general: ICMR-NIN and WHO both advise limiting it, and both name ghee among the foods that contain it.
WHO's 2023 guidelines on fats say fat eaten by everyone aged two and over should be mainly unsaturated, with no more than 10 per cent of energy from saturated fat, and list butter and ghee among the hard fats that supply it. ICMR-NIN advises limiting ghee or butter to 1 to 2 teaspoons a day, or avoiding it if possible.
ICMR-NIN also puts every cooking fat inside one visible-fat allowance: not more than 27 to 30 g a day on a 2,000 kcal diet. Avocado oil is not exempt. At about 124 kcal a tablespoon, it counts against that allowance as fully as ghee does. If you are managing cholesterol, a heart condition or any other diagnosis, follow your doctor's advice.
How can you tell if avocado oil is genuine?
Not reliably at home. Surveys of retail bottles have found many that were stale or mixed with cheaper oils. Colour and smell give rough clues: virgin oil should be green, refined oil pale yellow, and rancid oil smells stale, "sort of like play dough".
The evidence comes from laboratory tests of retail bottles:
- UC Davis, 2020. Of 22 domestic and imported avocado oil samples bought in the United States, at least 82 per cent were stale before their expiry date or mixed with other oils. Three bottles labelled "pure" or "extra virgin" were close to 100 per cent soybean oil.
- Tecnológico de Monterrey, 2025. Only 40 per cent of 25 commercial samples from Mexican brands met the fatty acid standards for avocado oil, and the samples furthest from them grouped closely with declared blends containing canola or safflower oil.
The UC Davis team's advice is to buy a size you will finish before it oxidises, store it away from light and heat rather than next to the stove, and choose oil closest to its production date, since the best-before date is not always a reliable guide. For ghee, the equivalent check is a batch-coded laboratory report; Himdhara publishes one for every batch before it ships.
The short version
Ghee is mostly saturated fat and avocado oil mostly monounsaturated, at about 62 g against 12 g of saturated fat per 100 g on USDA figures. Avocado oil is sold in virgin and refined grades, and refining strips its colour without changing its fatty acids. Both are often said to smoke at around 250°C, but we found no checkable measurement for either. Choose by flavour and dish, keep every cooking fat within ICMR-NIN's daily allowance, and leave health decisions to your doctor.
Sources
Further reading behind the figures above. Himdhara's own numbers — yields, batch results — come from our production records and the batch reports on the lab reports page.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (2019). Oil, avocado. FoodData Central (SR Legacy).
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (2019). Butter oil, anhydrous. FoodData Central (SR Legacy).
- ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition (2024). Dietary Guidelines for Indians. ICMR-NIN, Hyderabad.
- Nelson D, University of California, Davis (2020). Study Finds 82 Percent of Avocado Oil Rancid or Mixed With Other Oils. UC Davis News.
- Marín-Obispo LM, Mayorga-Martínez AA, Obispo-Fortunato DJ, et al. (2025). Fatty acids and fatty alcohol esters as novel markers of authenticity and extraction method of commercial avocado oil. Food Chemistry: X.