Avocado oil or plant-based? Light or full-fat? Mild chipotle or garlic aioli? The burgeoning mayonnaise aisle has so many alternatives that you may be wondering if your regular mayo needs replacing. But health-wise, mayo’s not bad. Here’s what to know about shopping for the spread.

This article comes from Nutrition Action. We don’t accept any paid advertising or corporate or government donations. Any products we recommend—like these “Best Bites”—have been vetted by our staff and are not advertisements by the manufacturers. They’re just healthy foods we think you’d like to know about!

1. Take your pick of mayos. Most are healthy enough.

Mayo may look creamy, but it has no cream. And because it’s mostly unsaturated vegetable oil and water (plus a touch of egg, vinegar, and salt), a tablespoon of full-fat mayo has just 1 to 1½ grams or so of saturated fat...plus plenty of healthy fats. Who knew? We didn’t need to set a sat fat limit for our Best Bites because no mayos have too much.

Sodium is low, too. Typical unflavored mayos range from 70 to 120 milligrams per tablespoon. And most mayos that add sugar contain so little that it shows up as zero or “<1 g” (less than 1 gram) on the Nutrition Facts label.

2. Your mayo doesn’t need an oil change.

“We make our mayo with avocado oil, NOT soy or canola oil, because you deserve only the best,” says Primal Kitchen about its Avocado Oil Mayonnaise.

Don’t let an unfounded fear of soybean, canola, safflower, or sunflower oil steer you toward avocado oil mayos that can cost more than twice as much as a regular mayo like Hellmann’s. Despite what some “seed oil” critics claim, the best evidence doesn’t show that those oils cause inflammation or other problems.

All oils in mayos are largely unsaturated, including avocado or olive. But soybean oil has a bonus: It’s richer in polyunsaturated fats, which can lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol more than the monounsaturated fats in avocado, olive, and canola oil.

But if you still want only avocado or olive oil in your mayo, check the ingredients list before you buy. A few imposters:

• Olive oil: Hellmann’s, Kraft, and Duke’s Olive Oil Mayos all mix their olive oil with canola and soybean oils. We didn’t find any 100% olive oil mayos on supermarket shelves.
• Avocado oil: Follow Your Heart Avocado Oil Vegenaise uses a mix of avocado and safflower oils. In contrast, Chosen Foods, Primal Kitchen, and Sir Kensington’s avocado oil mayos contain no other oils.

3. Go plant-based…or not.

Follow Your Heart Vegenaise is “the original egg-free spread that’s Better than Mayo!” boasts the label.

Are plant-based mayos really “better”? No. Regular mayos use egg to keep their oil and water from separating—that is, emulsified. Plant-based mayos use ingredients like pea protein, food starch, chickpea flour, or chickpea cooking water (the “aquafaba” in Sir Kensington’s Vegan Mayos).

But unless your diet is 100 percent plant-based (vegan), there’s no benefit in abandoning regular mayo, which contains just a tiny bit of egg. How do we know? A tablespoon of most regular mayos has a trivial 5 to 15 milligrams of cholesterol. A large egg yolk has roughly 200 mg (2/3 of a day’s max).

Some good news for vegan taste buds: Most big brands of plant-based mayos like JUST Mayo, Hellmann’s Plant Based Mayo, and NotCo Not Mayo taste…well, just like mayo. Nice!

4. Watching calories? Try a light mayo.

Regular mayo has 90 to 100 calories per tablespoon. There are plenty of reasons to go lower. Maybe you’re adding mayo to a dish like chicken salad or a burger that’s high in calorie density—that is, calories per bite. Maybe you’re trying to lose—or not gain—extra weight. Maybe your dish has so much flavor or so many ingredients that you won’t even notice a difference in taste between regular and light mayo.

In that case, try a “light” or “reduced fat” or “30% fewer calories” mayo. Most clock in at 40 to 60 calories per tablespoon. Just keep in mind that not every lower-cal mayo wowed our taste buds. A great-tasting bet, with a mere 35 calories, is Hellmann’s Light (sold as “Best Foods Light” if you’re west of the Rockies).

One light mayo-like “dressing” to skip: Miracle Whip Light. It has only 20 calories per tablespoon, but that’s partly because it replaces some of regular Miracle Whip’s high fructose corn syrup with sucralose and acesulfame potassium. Our Chemical Cuisine guide to additives rates those low-calorie sweeteners as “avoid” because sucralose increased the risk of cancer in animal studies and acesulfame potassium has been poorly tested. You won’t find either in our Best Bites.

5. Additives to avoid are rare.

Miracle Whip Light aside, we found little reason to be concerned about the ingredients in most mayos. Two ingredients that are in many mayos may sound unfamiliar, but we rate them as “safe”: calcium disodium EDTA (which helps prevent oils from going rancid) and sorbic acid or potassium sorbate (which preserves foods).

6. Try flavored mayo. Or make your own.

Flavored mayos—think chipotle, sriracha, or garlic—can add a flavor punch to sandwiches or other dishes. Many have a reasonable 90 to 120 mg of sodium per tablespoon.

How to use them? If necessary, thin your mayo to a dipping-sauce or drizzling consistency by whisking in a teensy splash of water, then:

• Use any flavored mayo as a dip for breaded chicken or plant-based tenders
• Drizzle a garlic aioli over tofu or grain bowls or roasted vegetables
• Top fish or shrimp tacos with chipotle mayo
• Mix sriracha mayo with canned salmon and use it to top an Asian-inspired rice bowl with edamame and vegetables like carrots, cucumbers, and bell peppers

Make your own: Except for a handful of Hellmann’s varieties, most flavored mayos are full-fat, so they have about 80 to 100 calories per tablespoon. If you want fewer calories, don’t want to buy a whole jar of a single mayo flavor, or would rather use vegan mayo, start with unflavored mayo and mix in a squirt of sriracha, a bit of mashed roasted garlic or black garlic, some chipotle in adobo sauce, or a pinch of curry powder (great for chicken salad with apples and almonds).