Review: Earth Balance coconut spread

I'm ALWAYS excited to go to @WholeFoods markets -- they really put in the effort to offer a range of products that work for those of us with #foodallergy.  It's just like a treasure hunt -- every time I go to replace my staples (like Glutino #gf breads) I know I'll find something new and exciting. This time, I was making a trek to replace my @Earth_Balance Soy-free margarine in the red container (TJs doesn't carry soy-free) and ran across an intriguing little blue tub of Earth Balance organic coconut spread.   I'm sure for legal reasons they can't call it margarine, but for all practical purposes, it's yet another tasty butter replacement for us.  This is dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free, organic, non-GMO and vegan.  Yay. It's like magic!

Ingredients: Tropical oil blend of extra virgin coconut, palm, and canola oils.  Water, salt, natural flavor (I assume it's a manufactured one), sunflower lecithin and lactic acid.  All organic.


I found this before Thanksgiving so have been doing side by side taste comparisons to the soy-free margarine for the past few weeks.  The coconut spread is lighter tasting, with not as much of a "buttery" flavor, and a bit less rich than the margarine.  It also retains a light coconut flavor, so I found it worked better in sweet combinations rather than savory.  When I fried an egg in it, it made my egg taste vaguely Hawaiian.  So I would stick to using it for sweets.  The consistency was great, the mouthfeel was very smooth like real butter, with just a tinge of the sweetness from real sweet butter. Bottom line, I like it VERY much as yet another butter substitute alternative.  But since it's got a bit of a coconut-y taste, and is a bit more expensive than their margarine, I think I'll save this for sweet baking items.  And continue to use their margarine for savory cooking and on breads and muffins.

Regardless, thank you so much Earth_Balance for continuing to make great products!  It's such a great time for foodallergy peeps, there are so many more choices available now.