Ep. 123| 7 Natural Plant-Based Substitutes for Butter - Try These Healthier Alternatives!
Sep 30, 2025
Is your diet transition away from meats going pretty well, but now you’re stuck on dairy?
You’re trying but it’s a challenge because you’ve been heavy on dairy your whole life and have been used to lathering your toast, soda crackers, baked potatoes and pancakes with butter. So now you need a replacement.
You’ve seen different commercial plant-based butter products sold at the grocery store. The question is, should you use these or are there other alternatives?
Some dairy items are indeed easier to swap out, like changing out the cow's milk in your coffee or morning cereal. In this case, you can simply use a plant-based milk alternative like organic fortified soy milk or an unsweetened calcium fortified almond milk. But other dairy products can seem trickier to substitute like cheese and butter.
There are many benefits to swapping out butter, not just because you're making the switch from meats to plants. It's a great choice to make if you also want to better your heart health. That's because just one tablespoon of butter already gives you 102 calories, 11.5 grams of fat, over 30 milligrams of cholesterol, and 7.3 grams of saturated fat.
So, though you'll be getting minuscule amounts of vitamins and minerals from butter, you'll be getting more than a third of the daily value of saturated fat for a person eating 2000 calories a day, and that's from only one tablespoon of butter!
Of course, there are now many commercial plant-based cheese and butter alternatives sold. But just because they are available and at local store near you, doesn't mean these are automatically the best option to buy or the healthiest. That's because plant-based commercial cheeses made with coconut oils can often contain quite a bit of sodium saturated fat, and other additives, while plant-based butter products are generally manufactured using oils that have undergone manufacturing processes to hydrogenate the oils to a certain degree, in order to harden them into a more solid state. Think of margarines, which are made from vegetable oils and other non-dairy butter substitutes.
These products don't contain much nutrients, are a source of a needed calories and could also be sources of trans fat, which are harmful for heart health. That's why I wanted to do this episode, to give you some healthier, more natural, whole food, plant-based alternatives that you can consider trying, in both baking and to enhance meals.
In this episode, let’s look together at 7 natural, healthier whole food plant-based substitutes you can use instead of regular butter your meals or in baking. Join me inside!
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Episode Highlights & Key Timestamps:
- [1:41] Podcast review spotlight – Msb1805
- [4:07] How to swap out cow’s milk from coffee or cereal
- [4:31] What you’ll get from just ONE tablespoon of butter
- [5:13] The problem with many commercial non-dairy plant-based cheese and butter products
- [6:22] Whole food plant-based spread options for your toast
- [7:09] How to substitute butter as an ingredient in baking recipes
- [8:13] Alternatives to butter on baked potatoes
- [11:10] An action step you can take
- [11:24] Where you can learn more ways to enjoy plant-based eating and living
Next Steps:
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