Butter Substitutes

Hold that butter! Butter is one of those foods we’ve come to love and depend on. After all what’s toast without butter or mashed potatoes without butter. Sadly butter has also come to be one of those foods that are not so good for us. So perhaps now is a good time to consider butter substitutes.

Wait now! Don’t rush out and trade butter for another spread that isn’t any better for you or perhaps worse. Margarine is not the answer nor are some of the new butter substitutes. Instead try something more natural.

Margarine contains trans fats which are formed because of chemical hydrogenation. Some margarines have up to 45% trans-fats in them. The problem is our body is unable to use theses fats and they’ve been directly linked to high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Soon you will see warning labels on products containing trans fats. So don’t trade real fats for chemically processed fats. If you had to choose butter would be a far better choice but we’ve got some better ideas.

Substitute cooking oil for butter. This might seem unnatural but it actually works well. It just takes a while to get used to and you need to do some experimenting. You can even substitute oil in you baking and olive oil on toast with a little bit of seasoning is down right delicious!

Olive oil is by far the best cooking oil to use and cold pressed extra virgin olive oil is the very best. Flaxseed oil, grape seed oil, and almond oil are also good.

What appeals to people around the world is the taste of olive oil and with a little time to adapt you’ll feel the same. Use olive oil on your toast and just add a little spice or on your mash potatoes with roasted garlic. Use it in your baking; in fact use it in everything. It’s healthy and a great way to get your Omega 6 oils.

Fruit puree is another excellent substitute. Pureed apple pulp, banana, pear, pineapple or even prunes makes a great spread and it can be substituted in baking as it has the same consistency as fat. Talk about a healthy substitute.

In your baking fruit will actually add more sweetness to your recipe than butter so you’ll want to reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe. When choosing a puree choose one that is appropriate for the recipe. You might not want to add prunes to your chocolate brownies but pineapple would be delicious. You need to use ½ cup of puree for every cup of butter.

Coconuts –Those wildly delicious and crazy coconuts make an excellent substitute for butter. No you don’t have to try to spread a coconut on your toast but you can buy coconut butter. It isn’t real great for spreading but with a little patience you can manipulate it and it tastes great. It’s also an excellent baking substitute.

Nutritional Yeast is also a good butter substitute and it tastes great on popcorn. Use just a touch of olive oil and with the yeast to make a spread.

Perhaps it’s time to get a little creative with butter substitutes. We’ve given you some great ideas to get you going in the right direction the rest is up to you. Your butter substitutes are only limited by your imagination. Just remember to make healthy choices!


Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.