Vegan margarine is made without animal products or by-products, but some non-vegan margarines contain dairy compounds or animal fats. Vegan margarine is made using oils such as palm, sunflower, olive, or soybean, and is labeled as such. It can be used like regular margarine, but the fat content should be checked before baking.
Vegan margarine is a form of margarine that is manufactured so that the final product contains no animal products or by-products. Although margarine is sometimes considered a dairy-free alternative to butter, compounds derived from dairy products are sometimes added to margarine, although labeling regulations do not always require manufacturers to list these compounds such as dairy products. Margarine is also, for the most part, made from oils extracted from plants, although this is not always the case; sometimes animal fats are added, making the resulting margarine clearly not vegan. Palm oil, sunflower oil, olive oil, and soybean oil are often used to make vegan margarine with no added dairy byproducts or animal fats. Just like traditional margarine, vegan margarine is available in filled bars or in the form of spreads that use even fewer ingredients in the production, although sometimes they don’t contain enough fat to be effectively used for cooking.
When making margarine, one of the first steps is to extract the oil from a plant source such as soybeans or olives. This oil can occasionally be extracted with a process that introduces enzymes of animal origin, making the margarine non-vegan. At the same time, animal fats can be added to oils of vegetable origin to increase their consistency, for economic convenience or to add a specific aromatic component. In general, vegan margarine makers use a mechanical process, such as extrusion, to remove oil from a substance, and they don’t use animal fats in production. Some manufacturers even produce vegan margarine with machines that are never used to process non-vegan ingredients, meaning there is little chance of accidentally introducing non-vegan ingredients into the vegan product.
Another aspect of making margarine is adding solids and emulsifiers. To keep margarine in its solid state, it is sometimes processed with milk and leaves behind dairy compounds. Lactic acid can also be added to margarine to boost flavor and give it more of the familiar butter flavor. When making vegan margarine, these steps are avoided, usually by using oils such as palm oil that are not completely liquid at room temperature. These oils are sometimes partially hydrogenated to complete solidification but are never mixed with milk or egg as some non-vegan margarines do.
When sold commercially, most vegan margarine is clearly labeled as such. It’s not safe to assume that a margarine not labeled as such is vegan or vegetarian, because there may be minute amounts of animal by-products or dairy products present. In general, most vegan margarine can be used just like regular margarine, although the fat content should be checked before using for baking. There’s also a greater variety of noticeable differences in the taste of vegan margarines, because so few ingredients are added to mask the natural flavors of the oils.
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