In vegan baking circles Earth Balance Buttery Sticks is the golden standard because it tastes and acts like butter more than the competition and because it's non-hydrogenated. But what's up with that sketchy buttery taste that's only explained on the package as natural flavor? In the food product industry the term natural and natural flavor is a bit of a joke that most of the rest of the world hasn't been clued in on yet. On a food ingredient label, natural flavor is basically the place where they put teensy tiny stuff they don't want you to know about. Yours truly was guilty of that when I ran my own baking company several years ago. My natural flavors mystery ingredient was vegan butter flavoring that included propylene glycol among other things. I was able to save money by using canola oil alongside this ingredient instead of buying a vegan margarine (that probably had the same exact butter flavoring) for 5 times the cost. I've often wondered what happens to my body when it accumulates large amounts of these natural flavors and I'd love to opt out and use something that doesn't contain them at least sometimes. Well now finally someone else has stepped into the vegan buttery spread game alongside Earth Balance and Spectrum Spread: Vegan By Nature Raw Buttery Spread.Madison Ave Gourmet has unveiled this spread which does two things:
- It constantly makes me think of this song (you down with Omega-3?)
- It quietly rewrites the rules for vegan buttery spreads. Well it's about time!
This spread is changing the way we look at buttery spreads because it's simply a blend of vegetable gums and tropical oils that are solid at room temperature. The beauty is in it's simplicity. The ingredients are as follows:
Ingredients: sweet almond oil (California), **cacao butter (Dominican Republic), palm fruit glycerin (Indonesia), **agave nectar (Mexico), non-GMO gum arabic, acacia gum, xanthan gum (USA), water,** ancient sea salt (USA).
**Organic ingredients
These are mostly healthy oils, high in monounsaturated fats and there are no suspicious mystery ingredients. The buttery spreads come in four flavors as of this writing: regular, orange, blackberry and praline.
So here's the big question: Since this spread is new I haven't had a chance to find it distributed on the East Coast to test. I'm even having trouble finding it online, probably because it would need to be packed with an ice pack to ensure the fats don't separate during shipping. Has anyone baked with this spread? I'm guessing since it's a spread and not a stick margarine, making flaky pie crusts, puff pastry, croissants and cakes made with the cream method is not possible. Thoughts?
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User comments
Don't think I'll be trying this product
According to the Center for Science in the Public interest (http://www.cspinet.org/palm/), palm oil production is responsible for the widespread destruction of rainforests and wildlife populations. Specifically, according to their site:
"Of the more than 400 land mammal species of Indonesia, 15 are critically endangered and another 125 threatened. Of Malaysia's nearly 300 land mammal species, 6 are critically endangered and 41 threatened. The numbers of threatened species climb higher when terrestrial reptiles, amphibians, and birds are included. Moreover, certain animals, such as the orangutan, are only found in these countries; when their rainforest habitat vanishes, so will they."
I think the ecological implications of supporting products that use palm oil (especially palm oil harvested from Indonesia or Malaysia, which account for the vast majority of the world's production), are far too great to be ignored by vegans. Yes, it's true that the ingredient lists for these dairy alternatives are free of animal products, but animals (and the environment) are suffering as a direct result of our desire for "healthier" baked goods (containing non-hydrogenated fats). I, like you, try as much as possible consume products that contain more natural ingredients. However, I find the notion that somehow cookies, cakes, pastries and other baked goods are supposed to be "good" for us is absurd. I do not believe pastries--vegan or otherwise--should be included as a regular part of anyone's diet.
Unfortunately, I don't have any solutions in the way of recommending a more ecologically/vegan-friendly butter alternative (yet!). I will, however, gladly eliminate my use of any palm oil as much as possible, the same way I eliminated meat, eggs, dairy, honey and other animal products (to the best of my ability) because my consumption harmed animals, my health and the environment.
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Hi Jen,
I totally agree with everything you said about the absurdity of baked goods being intended as healthy. I also agree with you in regards to palm oil. This is the vegan margarine world's dark little secret and it will be great when someone finds out how to make a buttery spread in stick form without palm oil. Thankfully, Spectrum Spread has figured out how to do this with tub margarine.
