Despite traditional cautions against eating animal fats to keep cholesterol in check, Danish researchers have found that eating hard cheese is better for the arteries than consuming the equivalent number of calories in butter.

According to their study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, when hard cheese accounted for 13 percent of participants’ daily calories, their LDL (bad cholesterol) did not increase. When the same individuals switched to consuming more butter, their LDL levels rose. The researchers were unsure what caused the results, but noted that cheese contains a lot of calcium, which can increase the amount of fat excreted by the digestive tract.