Vegan Butters With No Palm Oil (best brands)
Vegan butters are now very popular, due to many people following a plant-based lifestyle – whether this is for animal welfare, environmental or health reasons (or a combination). If you use dairy butter, then choose organic free-range versions, for better animal welfare.
Avoid giving leftover buttered sandwiches to garden birds and wildfowl (due to salt and fat that smears on feathers, affecting waterproofing and insulation).
The issue with vegan butters, is that many are made from palm oil. Greenpeace says there is no such thing as ‘sustainable palm oil’, as deforestation of forests in Indonesia still occurs, even for brands certified by the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil.
This term is simply a self-policed phrase by industry, and has no legal meaning (some forests under this term have been burned to the ground, with orangutans, their babies and other creatures within them).
Palm oil is also an unhealthy saturated fat that needs to be shipped from thousands of miles away. It’s only used by industry (in food, pet food and bar soaps – listed as sodium palmate’) because it’s cheap.
The easiest way to avoid palm oil is to cook your own meals with natural ingredients (like rapeseed oil, which can also be used in baking – or even use oil-free alternatives like applesauce in cakes).
But for general cooking and baking (and spreading on toast or baked potatoes), choose vegan butters that are free from palm oil).
Lurpak (plant-based real butter)
Lurpak now offers a plant-based butter (not a margarine), so this is excellent for cooking, frying and baking. It’s made with rapeseed, coconut and shea, flavoured with salt and coloured with carrot. Contains oats.
Flora Vegan Butters (including baking block)
Flora used to be a dairy margarine with palm oil, and has really given itself a makeover. It now offers plant-based vegan butters (including salted, unsalted and garlic) along with block butter, ideal for baking and making pastry.
Made with sunflower seeds, rapeseed and coconut, it’s endorsed by Gordon Ramsay. One of its butters is even sold in an oil/grease-proof paper pack, to avoid plastic.
Inspiration from Abroad: Oat Milk Butter
Miyoko’s Creamery (USA) is a good inspiration for us, as it’s made with oats (which could be locally-grown in England to make butter, and provide good income for farmers. It would also have the lowest food miles of any vegan butter.
This butter (also in a flavoured cinnamon version) is made with whole grain oat milk, along with organic sunflower and coconut oil, sea salt, lecithin, mushroom extract and coloured with organic vegetable and fruit juices.
How to Make Your Own Vegan Butter
Most of us are not going to bother. But if you do make your own vegan butter, it’s possible but you will need a few unusual ingredients.
This cultured vegan butter (Full of Plants) is from a French chef (and we all know that people in France know their butters!) This is very fancy, made with homemade cashew milk, sunflower lecithin and probiotics. One for chefs!
