There is No Such Thing as 'Plant Butter'

The food processors who produce a popular brand of ‘spread’ now have come out with a product that they have misnamed ‘plant butter.’ It comes in varieties that contain olive oil or avocado oil, but the one I looked at online ALSO contained the dreaded ‘canola’ oil (a trade name for rapeseed oil) and ‘pea protein.’ 

OK, here’s the thing: I live in the dairy capital of upper Michigan, Menominee county. My home is a former dairy farm, as are the two homes nearest mine. There are several currently-working dairy farms on my road. And so I know: butter is a DAIRY product. It comes from cows’ lady parts (or goats’ lady parts or sheeps’ lady parts, or I suppose yaks’ lady parts) and there is no such thing as a ‘butter plant’ with udders you can squeeze to get ‘plant butter.’ 

It used to be that dairy farmers were more defensive of their product. They would raise a fuss if imitation soy based drink was called ‘soy milk.’ They would give out awards to local restaurants who used real butter and not margarine or spread. 

I grew up eating margarine as a kid because of our society’s fat-phobia. Now I learn that the butter-substitutes we used back then were very unhealthy— full of trans-fats, hydrogenated oils, and over-refined cheap oils. 

Now we know that healthy fats are important in the diet— see the 1957 study from Kekwick and Pawan ‘Metabolic Study in Human Obesity with Isocaloric Diets High in Fat, Protein or Carbohydrate’ in Metabolism Clinical and Experimental, a scientific journal, which shows that diets high in fat were more effective in producing weight loss. 

My answer to the ‘plant butter’ scam: eat real butter. Grass-fed butter like Kerrygold is good if you can afford it. If you are dairy-sensitive, try ghee, which is made from butter. You can make it yourself at home, and I’m planning to write a blog post about it once I try making some myself.

If you want extra-virgin olive oil or avocado oil on your food, don’t buy ‘plant butter.’ You can just brush some of the actual oil over your food. You can even do this with low-carb gluten-free bread substitutes such as ‘Atkins Diet Revolution Rolls’ or one of my own recipes (I will share the latest version on this blog, soon.)

RECOMMENDED READING:

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, 2008 Reviews the science behind dietary theories like low-fat and low-carb.

Real Food Keto by Jimmy Moore & Christine Moore, NTP, 2019 Chapter 4 will educate you about fats— the good and the bad.

Ketotarian by Dr. Will Cole, 2018. If you just have to do a ‘plant based’ diet, you can still do keto. Author was a podcast co-host with Jimmy Moore.