By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

Whether it’s for baking or for toast or baked potatoes, you may be wondering which brand of vegan butter to choose. Certainly, you can live quite happily without ever using vegan butter, but if you are a consumer, you can decide to support a company whose product checks your boxes for nutritional quality. As an occasional user of vegan butter, I want a product that is low in saturated fat.

I looked at some widely available vegan butters. Information is from manufacturers’ websites and product packages.

The saturated fat content of the products I surveyed ranged from 2 grams to 8 grams of saturated fat in a 1 Tablespoon serving of vegan butters. The products with the lowest saturated fat are:

• I Can’t Believe It’s Not Vegan – 2 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon
• Earth Balance Whipped Buttery Spread and Olive Oil Buttery Spread – 2.5 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon
• Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread and Soy Free Buttery Spread – 3 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon

All of these products are tub butters. For baking, stick butters with the lowest saturated fat are:

• Earth Balance sticks (Vegan Buttery, Unsalted Buttery, and European Style) – 3.5 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon
• Country Crock Plant Butter Sticks – 5 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon

Earth Balance’s Organic Whipped Buttery Spread is the only product that was both lower in saturated fat and had organic ingredients. Other products that were certified organic include:

• Miyoko’s Creamery Cultured Oat Milk Vegan Butter – 4.5 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon
• Wayfare Foods Dairy Free Butter – 5 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon
• Miyoko’s Creamery Cultured Vegan Butter (salted and unsalted) – 8 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon