Amarlene Foods Debuts Plant-Based Spread Made from Coconut Oil

Amarlane Foods, a NY company dedicated to developing plant-based foods using only a few natural ingredients, has launched Betterine, an alternative to butter and margarine that is 100% free of dairy products, chemicals, and additives.  The product in fact is made from just 4 natural ingredients: pure coconut oil, water, organic soy lecithin, and arrowroot powder.  It has a neutral taste that can be used wherever butter or margarine are called for.  Betterine is 100% vegan and certified kosher (pareve) – perfect for transforming buttery desserts into healthier, dairy-free, vegan friendly masterpieces.  It is available in 4-stick/16 oz. packages (MSRP $5.80) and 2-stick/8 oz. packages (MSRP $2.99) and currently sold only in kosher stores.

Amarlene Foods spent the past three years in heavy R&D to bring Betterline to market. “We started as a company looking to solve the fundamental issues that are holding back regular products from the mass market from being natural,” Betterine president Akiva Stern said. With Betterine, there is no separation that occurs when exposed to high temperatures because of the products patent-pending emulsification, which uses arrowroot fiber as the emulsifier agent binding the coconut oil and water together. Betterine, like all other margarine and spread-type products, does not use partial hydrogenation since the FDA banned the use of PHOs.  

Stern commented that the coconut oil used in Betterine is not modified on the molecular level in any way.  “Our oil, which is pure coconut oil, put in a tank together with the ingredients at a specific temperature point, at specific fractions, is mixed, cooled, and packaged.  We don’t play around with any of these ingredients,” said Stern.  While critics in the industry argue there is nothing healthy about a spread made from coconut oil, which is high in saturated fat and which the American Heart Association advised consumers to avoid in its 2017 advisory, Stern said the company is not claiming that it is healthy, but it is natural.  Things have to be consumed in moderation and these are all simple ingredients that have been consumed for millennia, he added.