How Much Olive Oil per Day? What Studies and Switzerland Say

"One to two tablespoons a day" – that answer is everywhere, usually without a source. Yet the question can be answered surprisingly precisely, because there are three solid reference points: the amounts actually given in intervention trials, the official polyphenol health claim with its 20-gram condition, and the Swiss federal dietary recommendations. This article puts them side by side and converts them into the spoons you find in a Swiss kitchen drawer.

The amounts at a glance

Reference point	Amount per day	In Swiss tablespoons (10 g)
Harvard cohorts: most favourable group	more than 7 g	a good half spoon
Swiss recommendation: vegetable oil in total	20 g	2 spoons, at least 1 of them rapeseed oil
Authorised polyphenol claim	20 g	2 spoons
EUROLIVE trial	25 ml, about 23 g	just over 2 spoons
PREDIMED: intake achieved	50 g	5 spoons

So the range runs from half a spoon to five. That is not a contradiction, because each figure answers a different question. Mix them up and you end up either with too little to replace anything at all, or with a trial protocol that was never meant as everyday advice.

A tablespoon is not a unit of measurement

Before getting to the studies, it is worth looking at the spoon itself. The three most important sources work with three different sizes:

The Swiss federal authorities equate 2 tablespoons with 20 g in their dietary recommendations, so 10 g per spoon.
PREDIMED describes 50 g as "approximately 4 tablespoons", which is just over 12 g per spoon.
The Harvard analysis equates half a tablespoon with 7 g, so 14 g per spoon – the American tablespoon.

Then there is the difference between volume and weight. Olive oil is lighter than water: the Codex Alimentarius gives a relative density of 0.910 to 0.916 at 20 °C. A litre therefore weighs about 913 g, and 25 ml correspond to roughly 23 g. In everyday terms: if you measure with a large, heaped soup spoon, you can easily take half as much again as you think. If you want to know for sure, weigh one spoonful on the kitchen scale once – after that, your eye will do.

PREDIMED: 50 grams a day, but as part of a diet

PREDIMED is the largest randomised trial in which extra virgin olive oil was deliberately supplied. In Spain, 7,447 people aged 55 to 80 at high cardiovascular risk were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a Mediterranean diet with olive oil, a Mediterranean diet with nuts, or a reduced-fat control diet.

The amounts are well documented. The olive oil group received about one litre of extra virgin olive oil a week free of charge. The target was at least 4 tablespoons, about 50 g, a day – including oil used for cooking, on salads and in meals eaten away from home. The control group, by contrast, was advised to use no more than 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil a day, olive oil included. At the end, the olive oil group was measured to have raised its intake of extra virgin olive oil to 50 g a day, the nut group to 32 g.

After a median follow-up of 4.8 years, the olive oil group had fewer heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths (hazard ratio 0.69); which part of that result is statistically firm and which is not is set out in what PREDIMED shows about heart health, and what it does not. For all-cause mortality, however, there was no firm difference – we cover the details in a dedicated article on olive oil, life expectancy and mortality.

Two things matter for the question of amount. First, it was not olive oil alone that was tested but a whole dietary pattern with more fish, legumes and vegetables. Second, the 50 g were aimed at older people at high risk, where they replaced ordinary refined oil. That is a study target, not a recommendation for everyone.

EUROLIVE: 25 millilitres and the role of polyphenols

The second important intervention trial is smaller, but more revealing for the question of amount. In EUROLIVE, published in 2006 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, 200 healthy men at six research centres in five European countries took 25 ml of olive oil a day, for three weeks at a time, with two-week breaks in between. Each participant tested three oils in turn that differed only in their content of phenolic compounds: 2.7, 164 and 366 mg per kilo.

The result: HDL cholesterol rose and markers of oxidative damage to blood lipids fell more strongly the more phenols the oil contained. With the same amount of oil, quality made the difference. The authors themselves name the limitations: short intervention periods and self-reported diet.

Important for context: in 2025 the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) assessed an application to credit olive oil polyphenols with maintaining normal HDL cholesterol. Its verdict: the evidence is insufficient, because the result of one study in men was not replicated in other groups. Only the claim on protecting blood lipids remains authorised.

The official claim: 20 grams and a condition on the oil

In Switzerland, health claims are listed in Annex 14 of the FDHA Ordinance on Food Information (LIV); any other claim needs authorisation from the FSVO. The wording matches EU Regulation (EU) No 432/2012, which reads for olive oil: "Olive oil polyphenols contribute to the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress."

The conditions come in two parts. The oil must contain at least 5 mg of hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives per 20 g, and consumers must be told that the beneficial effect is obtained with a daily intake of 20 g of olive oil. It rests on a 2011 EFSA opinion that assumes 5 mg of these compounds a day.

Converted, the claim requires 250 mg of hydroxytyrosol and derivatives per kilo of oil. That leads to an uncomfortable calculation: with an oil that does not reach this level, even 20 g a day will not add up to 5 mg, and eating more oil to make up for it would wreck the calorie balance. The more sensible lever is the oil, not the amount. How to recognise polyphenol-rich oils and why the content varies so much is explained in our article on polyphenols in olive oil.

The Swiss recommendation: two spoons of vegetable oil, one of them rapeseed

The Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) and the Swiss Society for Nutrition (SSN) updated their dietary recommendations on 11 September 2024 and presented them in a redesigned food pyramid. For adults, the guidance on fats is:

"Eat 2 tbsp per day of vegetable oil (20g) – of which at least 1 tbsp should be in the form of rapeseed oil."
"Butter, margarine and similar fats: use sparingly; maximum 10g per day."
Nuts and seeds are a group of their own: a small handful every day, 15 to 30 g.

For olive oil this sets a clear frame: about one tablespoon a day, alongside a spoon of rapeseed oil. The key words are "of which": the recommendation explicitly asks for both oils, so olive oil does not replace the rapeseed spoon. Anyone who uses olive oil instead of butter also shifts part of the 10 g of butter towards olive oil without increasing total fat.

That one spoon fits the observational data well. In the two large Harvard cohorts with 92,383 adults, the group with the lowest risk of death was already at more than 7 g a day. The benefit showed mainly when olive oil replaced margarine, butter, mayonnaise or dairy fat – compared with other vegetable oils there was no significant difference. More on these studies is in our practical guide to daily olive oil.

What this means in everyday life

A tablespoon of olive oil at 10 g provides 90 kilocalories – the LIV counts 9 kcal per gram of fat. Two spoons of vegetable oil are therefore about 180 kcal. That is unproblematic as long as the oil replaces something, and becomes an issue when it is poured over every meal on top.

A day within the Swiss recommendation might look like this:

Lunch: a spoon of extra virgin olive oil on the salad or over vegetables, instead of a ready-made dressing.
Dinner: a spoon of rapeseed oil for braising or in the vinaigrette.
Bread: a drizzle of olive oil instead of butter, if you want to save the 10 g of butter anyway.

Over a year, 10 g of olive oil a day comes to 3.65 kg, roughly four litres per person. At 20 g a day it is about eight litres. For comparison: there is no direct measurement of Swiss per-head consumption, only two approximations, and the gap between them is explainable. The FSVO food balance sheet puts 2020/21 at 5.0 g of olive oil per person per day, around 1.8 kg a year. The calculation from import statistics comes out higher – 2.2 kg per head in the record year 2020, about 6 g a day – because it also counts catering, the food industry and losses. The rule of thumb that follows from both: just under 2 kg a year, 5 to 6 g a day. Olive oil thus stays a supplementary oil; the same import calculation gives 5.9 kg of rapeseed oil and 5.2 kg of sunflower oil per head for 2020. Switching to a spoon a day therefore means buying between one and a half and twice the average – which makes the price per litre worth watching. The full time series and all four approximations are in Olive oil consumption in Switzerland from 2000 to 2025. What a litre of extra virgin olive oil currently costs at Migros, Coop, Aldi, Lidl, Denner and Manor is shown in our price overview.

Frequently asked questions

How much olive oil per day is healthy?

According to the Swiss dietary recommendations, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil a day (20 g) make sense, at least one of them rapeseed oil. That leaves about one tablespoon, roughly 10 g, for olive oil. In large observational studies, a lower risk of death appeared from more than 7 g a day.

Are 4 tablespoons of olive oil a day too much?

Four spoons correspond to the target of the PREDIMED trial, which worked with 50 g a day – but in older people at high cardiovascular risk and as part of a whole Mediterranean diet. In Switzerland this amount is not a general recommendation; it also provides about 450 kcal.

Where does the figure of 20 grams come from?

From the authorised health claim for olive oil polyphenols. It may only be used for oils containing at least 5 mg of hydroxytyrosol and derivatives per 20 g, and must state the daily intake of 20 g.

How many grams are in a tablespoon of olive oil?

It depends on the spoon. The Swiss federal authorities count 10 g, the PREDIMED trial just over 12 g, American studies 14 g. Because olive oil is lighter than water, 10 ml weigh about 9.1 g.

Should you drink olive oil neat on an empty stomach?

There is no basis for that in the studies described here. PREDIMED counted the oil used for cooking and on salads, and the observational studies show the benefit mainly when olive oil replaces other fats.

Sources

Note: This article is for general information only and does not replace advice from a doctor or dietitian. If you have health questions, please consult a professional.