The Top Three Plant Based Butters

I don’t know about you, but I for one can’t cook or barely survive for that matter, without butter. I tried a high fat Keto diet and it sent my bad cholesterol, triglycerides etc. through the roof. Now, I’m dairy free (except whey) and feeling great. I’ve been recently discovering dairy free alternatives as part of my wellness coaching program. Not only is going dairy-free good for your health and heart, but it stops horrendous animal cruelty to lactating milk cows. Plant based diets are much better for sustainability and our ecosystem, even with them being more machine processed and food transport costs. A lot of us don’t realize that cheese, especially hard cheese and imported cheeses have a much higher carbon footprint than even meat. So, this brought me to become quite a vegan-butter connoisseur, and I wanted to share with you the top three dairy free, vegan alternatives:
I’ll tell you a little bit about the pros and cons of each:

#1 European Style Cultured Vegan Butter *SALTED*

https://miyokos.com/collections/vegan-butter

Thus was the most expensive, it was about $5.99 for only 8oz.- 1/2lb. at the time, worth every penny. This was my favorite all around, the texture and most like real butter, it cost a bit more, but organic, and “nothing bad,” so well worth it. You can use it 1-1 for real butter, and it has a lovely melt-able base of coconut oil which is great for high temperature cooking. It has a hard, whitish texture like the imported Irish butter blocks.

The best overall.

#2 Country Crock Plant Butter with Olive Oil

https://www.countrycrock.com/our-products/plant-butter

We crafted this delicious plant-based butter made from ingredients like Olive Oil. It tastes like dairy butter and is excellent for cooking, baking and spreading. It is plant-based, dairy-free and gluten-free. In addition, Country Crock^® Plant Butter production results in less than half the greenhouse gas emissions of dairy butter production. Ingredients: Blend Of Plant-Based Oils (Palm Kernel, Canola, Palm Fruit, And Olive Oil), Water, Salt, Pea Protein, Sunflower Lecithin, Citric Acid, Natural Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate, Beta Carotene (Color)

This one is my second choice, it has a whitish yellow texture and the four sticks make 1-1 butter replacement cooking very easy to measure. However, I placed a stick in my butter dish that I keep on the counter and it melted and the olive oils separated, so I suggest leaving it refrigerated. All in all, at $3.99 for 1lb, an exceptional vegan, non-organic choice!

The best for baking!

 

#3 Simple Truth Plant Based Buttery Spread

https://www.kroger.com/p/simple-truth-organic-dairy-free-salted-butter/0001111003825

This one was a buttery spread, priced at $3.79 made with… organic butterbeans! No carbs! I loved it to spread on crackers or toast, and it is ready to spread right out of the refrigerator. It had a different consistency because it was spreadable and it was white, sweet and pretty salty. I felt like I moreso wanted to eat it like ice cream than use it for butter. This was my third choice, but you might want to keep a few vegan butters on-hand for different uses.

The best for spreading.

Thank you to these companies for offering such a variety of plant based alternatives! Here’s to our health and planet!

Photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels