Sushi without soy sauce is about as depressing as salad without dressing. But instead of drowning fish in the go-to condiment (which is rich in sodium and contains gluten), you might want to reach for Thrive Market Coconut Aminos instead.

Coconut aminos imparts the same sweet-yet-salty umami flavor as soy sauce and its wheatless cousin tamari, but offers a big difference when it comes to nutrition. Because coconut aminos is made from the organic sap of the coconut tree, it can have anywhere from two to 14 times the amino acid content of soy and contains up to 65 percent less sodium. Our liquid aminos is not only 100 percent free of soy, but also free and clear of gluten and GMOs, making it an ideal seasoning for any diet.

Other reasons to love this rich sauce? Thrive Market Coconut Aminos has a low glycemic index, and is loaded with minerals, vitamins, and 17 amino acids that play a vital role in many of our body’s most basic functions.

You can enjoy Thrive Market’s Coconut Aminos however you would soy or tamari sauce—in stir fry, as a marinade or dipping sauce, or drizzled over noodles, quinoa, and veggies. Your food (not to mention your stomach, blood pressure, and thyroid) will thank you.

How Thrive Market Coconut Aminos is made

When the coconut tree is tapped, it will produce a nutrient-rich sap that pours from coconut blossoms. We collect the sap in small batches to ensure it is enzymatically alive, which means it will provide optimal health benefits. It is then blended with mineral-rich Balinese sea salt and aged to produce the hearty flavor. The unbleached, unrefined sea salt is hand-harvested from the country’s black beach sand shores and packed with health-boosting minerals, too.

Fair-trade certified at last!

We’re proud to say that our coconut aminos is the only one on the market that is certified fair trade. Our product is harvested by coconut farmers in Indonesia, some of the most impoverished workers in the world. Ensuring that our partners receive a fair wage for their hard work tops our list of priorities.

The unique taste of coconut aminos

Don’t let the name fool you, coconut aminos actually doesn’t taste like coconut at all. Though it comes from the coconut tree, it’s collected from the tree sap—so it’s not derived from any part of the actual nut. Flavor-wise, it’s rich and salty with just a subtle hint of sweetness. We’ve also crafted our aminos to be less salty than traditional soy sauce, which makes it even more versatile and complex for a number of cooking uses.

The many health benefits of coconut aminos

Amino acids

Our coconut aminos contains 14 naturally occurring amino acids, a huge boost to daily diets. The human body can only produce 10 of the 20 amino acids that our body needs for detrimental functions; the rest we have to absorb through food. For vegan or vegetarian eaters, coconut aminos can be an especially important addition to meals since meat, eggs, and dairy are some of the foods with the highest amino acid content, which makes it challenging for animal-free eaters to obtain the required amounts.

Regardless of your diet, pouring a little coconut aminos over your food is always a smart (and tasty!) idea, as amino acids play a vital role in:

Muscle repair
Brain and nervous system functions
Immunity
Energy levels

Vitamins

Coconut aminos also has other health-boosting vitamins to take into consideration, including:

B vitamins: In every serving you’ll get a heart dose of the entire vitamin B family, each of which helps the body process food (carbohydrates in particular) and convert it into energy. This group of vitamins also plays a key role in red blood cell formation and supporting the immune system.
Vitamin C: This potent vitamin is important for immune system defense, helping to fight off everything from the common cold to protecting the body against cardiovascular disease, prenatal problems, eye disease, and skin wrinkling.

Lower Glycemic Index

Diabetics also might want to take note of coconut aminos’ low glycemic index (GI). Foods with a lower GI don’t cause glucose levels to skyrocket after eating and have been shown to help decrease risks of:

Cardiovascular disease
Type 2 diabetes
Metabolic syndrome
Stroke
Depression
Chronic kidney disease
Gallstones
Uterine fibroids
Cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, and pancreas

Six reasons to make the switch from soy sauce

There may be good reason to pause before dunking your next California roll in soy sauce. That’s because most commercialized soy sauces today are a far cry from the highly fermented, unpasteurized varieties common to traditional Asian cultures (dating back at least 2,500 years). While patience and time were once the secret to fermentation and aging, today chemical brewing is relied upon to speed up production.

This modern-day shortcut means that the harmful effects of soybeans are not inactivated, as they would be in natural fermentation, which can bring on a host of unwanted problems, including:

GMOs: Soybeans are one of the most genetically modified crops in existence, and there's no telling if the soybeans used to make the salty condiment are non-GMO or not.
Gluten: Whole soybeans themselves are inherently gluten-free, but they are one of the most cross-contaminated of all crops because they are grown, processed, and stored alongside wheat.
Sodium: Soy sauce is loaded with salt, containing an average of 940-1000 mg per tablespoon.
Estrogen: Soybeans contain phytoestrogens, known endocrine disruptors that mimic the body’s natural estrogen. For men, this can mean infertility, low sperm count, and low libido; for women, it can lead to infertility, menstrual issues, and even cancer.
Enzyme Inhibitors: The high levels of phytic acid in soy inhibit the body’s ability to absorb important minerals like zinc, calcium, iron, and magnesium. It also contains protease inhibitors that can block the enzymes required for the proper digestion of proteins.
Goitrogens: These are potent compounds that inhibit the thyroid’s ability to utilize iodine, which can result in weight gain, low energy, fatigue, and weakened immunity.

Because our coconut aminos is sourced from organic coconut trees and goes straight to the bottle to be aged, it is not genetically modified and has no risk of gluten contamination. It is also free of phytoestrogens, phytic acid, and goitrogens, and has 65 percent less sodium than soy or tamari sauces.

Cooking with Thrive Market Coconut Aminos

Here are some creative and mouthwatering ways to use coconut aminos the next time you cook dinner:

Pita Sandwich with Vegan Chickpea Patties

Fry up these delicious vegan patties with some chickpeas, tahini, almond flour, seasonings, and coconut aminos, and you have a quick and easy way to eat a Mediterranean meal at lunch or dinner.

Halibut and Mushrooms in a Pepper-Ginger Broth

Umami flavor and rich Omega-3’s come together in this tasty broth bowl that combines halibut and mushrooms with tasty seasonings including ginger, garlic, and rosemary.

Ahi Grapefruit Poke

This Hawaiian staple gets even more tropical with a citrus and ginger marinade that uses coconut aminos as a star ingredient.

More about Thrive Market products

At Thrive Market, our mission is to bring you the highest quality organic goods at truly affordable prices. That's why we've gone directly to the source to develop our own line of premium products made from the very best all-natural ingredients at a fraction of their usual price tag. Finally, you don't need to choose between cost and quality, taste and health, value and your values. If it has the Thrive Market seal, you can trust that you're getting the highest quality product possible at the lowest price anywhere. Shop our premium, organic, and fair-trade certified virgin coconut oil, spices, nuts and dried fruits, tomato sauces, ghee, and sprouted grains today!