Vegan food reviews

Vegan foods reviewed – part 6 (USA edition)

I recently came back from LA due to some family responsibilities and while I didn’t get much time to explore the full gamut of vegan offerings while there, I did make sure to try some new stuff at the grocery stores.

If you’ve tried and loved Follow Your Heart products, I was delighted to find that they started as a restaurant/store decades ago and that place happened to be near where I was staying. (This was more of an anecdote because I was excited to visit their awesome restaurant…I’m not reviewing their food this time around! 😛)

This entire aisle is vegan food; a mind-boggling vista if you’ve ever been to a normal grocery store!

Anyway, today we have some fun offerings from Daiya, Clean South, Sweet Earth and So Delicious.

These reviews are particularly geared towards former omni eaters who are keen to have that meat or dairy favourite available as a tasty cruelty-free equivalent.

About the ratings system: Ratings are for what I consider the important elements of an appealing food product, with “Texture” being one that you might not normally see for other food reviews, but to me it is quite indicative of the success of a meat or dairy substitute. I choose “Value” over “Price” as vegan foods are generally more expensive than their meat or dairy counterparts (or rather, the latter are unreasonably and irrationally cheap given what they are) so I choose to focus on how good they are for the amount you pay.

On to today’s reviews:

PRODUCT: CLEAN SOUTH – VEGAN BUFFALO WINGS
Type: Prepared meal
Country of origin: USA
Clean South

Whenever I see things with “buffalo” flavouring, my mouth instantly starts to water. Back when I had an omnivore diet, hot chicken wings were my guilty pleasure. While I now think about how abhorrent it is to consume the little wings of young chickens, the desire for that flavour doesn’t leave you and I am forever on a search for the perfect buffalo wing replacement. Enter: Clean South’s Vegan Buffalo Wings.

I am not prone to using OMG to describe foods, but O.M.G. these were good. I honestly couldn’t even be bothered heating them for the first half of the box, but then when I did and paired them with Daiya’s dairy-free blue cheese dressing, flipping’ ‘eck bro, things got crazy-good. Now, in restaurants I have tasted some darned good vegan ‘wings’ but this was the first packaged ones I’ve had that just nailed it. Texture, chewiness, beautiful tangy and hot sauce (and plenty of sauce), tasty and addictive. I’m a big fan of Franks’ Red Hot sauce inspired hot wings sauce, so this was just right for me.

Being that I was in the US and this was a local LA product, I kind of expect things to be a wee bit cheaper, but no, these were quite expensive at US$9. I’m happy to support a local, small producer that is banging out awesome food though. I desperately wish I could get these in Australia, but I’ also glad as I’d be broke.

More to come….

Vegan foods reviewed – part 5

I’m actually finding that my intake of faux dairy and mock-meat products goes in waves depending on my mood: when I feel sad or need comfort food, they get purchased in abundance; if I’m feeling good and healthy, then it’s all veggies, salads and smoothies for me! Lucky for you, I’m feeling a bit blah…so here come some omni-style treats! 🙃

We’ve got a “sour cream” show-down for you today, some meat-y snacking and a new offering from our American friends at Upton’s.

vegan-symbol

These reviews are particularly geared towards former omni eaters who are keen to have that meat or dairy favourite available as a tasty cruelty-free equivalent.

About the ratings system: Ratings are for what I consider the important elements of an appealing food product, with “Texture” being one that you might not normally see for other food reviews, but to me it is quite indicative of the success of a meat or dairy substitute. I choose “Value” over “Price” as vegan foods are generally more expensive than their meat or dairy counterparts (or rather, the latter are unreasonably and irrationally cheap given what they are) so I choose to focus on how good they are for the amount you pay.

On to today’s reviews:

SOUR CREAM SHOWDOWN

PRODUCT 1: TOFUTTI BETTER THAN SOUR CREAM

Type: non-dairy Sour cream
Country of origin: USA
tofutti.com

overall-5

vs

PRODUCT 2: GREEN VIE SOUR CREAM
Type: non-dairy Sour cream
Country of origin: Cyprus
greenviefoods.com

9415

overall-5

Sadly, this will be a no-contest right off the bat when you look at the scores. When I decided to give the Green Vie a shot today, I was really expecting it to be a gloves-off, fight-to-the-finish competition between these two. I have been eating Green Vie’s cheeses and I find them good value and quite comparable to bigger, more established brands. I’ve been admittedly eating Tofutti for some time and it’s always my go-to for their sour cream and cream cheese products, but I figured there’s always opportunity to be newly wowed by competition. Today was not that day however.

Right off the bat, the Green Vie (GV) came in at over 20% more expensive than the Tofutti…I was expecting it to be extra gourmet! Tofutti is good value given that it comes from overseas and it is so tasty, but it still comes in at almost twice the dairy-equivalent price (as I’ve covered with this before, dairy is subsidised and undervalued so it’s not a totally fair comparison). Looking at the ingredients, the GV has a pretty short list and read more like it was one of their hard cheeses, which was a bit worrying.

The first thing that struck me upon opening the container was that they totally missed the boat with the texture (and have made totally false advertising on the package): it was lumpy, see-transparent and a cool-white colour – all very un-sour cream like. I didn’t care for it’s runnyness as I loaded some onto my corn chip. Sadly, the taste was equally disturbing: not so sour, quite strong coconut oil taste, and just a bit odd. I’m not sure how they missed the mark so spectacularly to be honest, unless sour cream in Cyprus is much different than North American or Australian equivalents.

The Tofutti is a very different beast. The texture is a little firmer than dairy sour cream, but if you stir it, it whips up into a super-smooth confection. Dipped with salsa on a corn chip (the way I love eating this combo), it is as near-perfect as I can recall to my dairy-eating days. It has a “sour” that isn’t simply some lemon added to the mix, but more subtle and accurate. Blobbed on top of nachos, or stirred into a mushroom stroganoff makes my tummy smile as to it’s perfect simulation for sour creamy meals. On it’s own it is also very good, though you start tasting that it’s not quite the same as the dairy version. However, I don’t recall ever eating sour cream straight from the tub so it doesn’t matter.

The verdict is quite clear: Green Vie, what’s the deal? How did things go sooo wrong?

PRODUCT: UPTON’S NATURALS – CH’EESY BACON MAC
Type: Prepared meal
Country of origin: USA
Upton’s Naturals

overall-5

As I recently did my first Upton’s review, you can read a bit more in-depth background about them there, and I’ll just move into the review…

The meal comes in microwave-ready vacuum-sealed plastic pouches, one being the pre-cooked pasta (thick macaroni) and the other being the cheese and “bacon” mixture. As previously, the package says it is “2 serves” which is not true if you are a normal-sized human eating this as a main meal. It is a “just-enough” serve for one person, but I might be hungry in an hour. The $9 price point is therefore quite steep given the quantity but also the contents: seeing a simple bag of pasta and a little sachet of cheese mix and that is it made me think that this was quite a poor deal given their other products are more exotic with their ingredients. Worse yet, when I opened the sauce sachet, there were a whole 4 pieces of “bacon” and they were the colour of the sauce. Note in the product photo that there are at least double the amount of meaty red pieces. Not good Upton’s.

Flavour-wise I was not too impressed. Nutritional yeast (“nooch” as vegans tend to refer to it) is the primary ingredient and to me that is yesterday’s cheat to making something sort of “cheesy”. When I make homemade mac and cheese, I use cashews and a bundle of different ingredients to create a rich, creamy and very flavourful sauce. This one was thin, salty and too nooch-y. Even the texture failed as the sauce was a bit gritty and just not rich in that way that comfort food needs to be. Even with the obligatory ketchup drizzled atop the meal after I’d tasted it naked, it still revealed the gritty, salty side which just wasn’t satisfying.

Overall, a huge miss compared to the hit that was their Massaman Curry and the fact that both items were priced the same makes this one even more of a dud. Disappointed as I was very much looking forward to it.

PRODUCT: A&T INTERNATIONAL ROASTED VEGAN JERKY
Type: Mock meat snack
Country of origin: Taiwan
(no official site found; referring to reseller page Vegan Online)

overall-4

When I did eat meat, I actually didn’t indulge in beef jerky all that much. I have liked hot and spicy food for many years however and that is probably what initially drew me to try this Roasted Vegan Jerky. It is made by Taiwanese company obscurely known as A&T International Soya Food and there is no official website from the Googling that I did. More than likely, that name is the distributor and their name is only in untranslated Taiwanese. Regardless, they sell the stuff at the link above if you are keen to try!

What I appreciate about this product most of all is the legitimate chewiness and fibrousness of the jerky, so it actually takes some effort to pull it apart, all the while kicking your butt with some hot chilli spices. I’ve not come across this texture simulation before in a vegan product. I like it! It’s also got a properly meaty flavour that isn’t just all hot, but also clearly a meat-like layering of taste. Thankfully, it’s not identical to the sinewy nature of dried animal muscle but it makes you work for it; if you miss that aspect of your former meat-eating days, then this will give you plenty of satisfaction.

The price is decent for what it is, albeit a small 120g packet for $5.50, but it’s a satisfying treat that does very well to simulate it’s meat-based cousin.

Vegan food shopping pet peeves

Being vegan ain’t always easy. Actually, a lot of the time it gets me either really sad or truly angry. That is actually rarely about the food itself and more about the politics of raising animals for meat and dairy, the inherent cruelty of our animal agriculture system and the wilful destruction of our planet to feed people so-called “food” they don’t actually need to eat in order to survive.

When it does come down to the food though, there are so many great options, who can complain, right? Well, now… 😬 Here come my pet peeves (of today):

Unnecessary infiltrators

There could be SO MANY more vegan-friendly foods if companies that make an otherwise vegan product either slip “milk solids” or something stupid in there, or have a “May contain” list that includes dairy, eggs, etc even though the product doesn’t have those things in it. This happens far more often than it should!

Who decides on what the “perfect” hot dog is anyway?

There is a perception by meat-eaters and vegans alike that a vegan product has to faithfully reproduce the best version of a meat or dairy product or else it will be deemed unsuccessfully. The scrutiny is unfair and besides, who’s standards are we going by? In any food discussion, you’ll have people who swear by a certain thing, and someone else who thinks it is terrible. There is almost no gold standard for anything so we may as well get creative. If something “isn’t quite a meat item” but tastes awesome and looks very different, does it matter? If taste is paramount, then it should win out no matter what it looks like, even if the mock-meat is grey or a funny shape. If it looks weird AND tastes bad, well, that’s different. However, if it tastes “wrong” because someone was trying so hard to make that, say, blue cheese equivalent look, smell and taste identical, then maybe we need to address why it can’t just be it’s own thing. We need a new food category where foods are totally new but independently taste great without comparative scrutinising.

Making the food secretly vegan

Products that don’t mark specifically that they are vegan, nor dairy free and yet on the ingredients they have no animal products. If it isn’t on their allergens list (which they legally need to have) then it should be fair dinkum vegan, right? If so Food Company, why not just put vegan-friendly or dairy-free on the box?? Why make vegans hunt around and then take a risk or have to waste time contacting the manufacturer? You’re missing out on a growing market here people!

“Green-washing,” vegan style

Why is the vegan equivalent of a meat or dairy-based product by large companies still charged at a higher cost than the original meat/dairy item? Bigger companies are actually saving money on their core ingredients and their R&D departments are already well-funded and aren’t needing to recoup their development investment the same as a boutique company might justify their higher prices.

I am aware that animal products are heavily subsidised plus farmers are paid a pittance for what they do (which, in turn, results in the animals getting treated horribly in order to keep some profit margin). But pulses, veggies, grains and so on are cheap…

Of course, as I’ve been told before, the price of meat and dairy in western nations is unsustainably competitive. The “true” tally of our grocery bill should be about 2-3 times higher than it is, so maybe vegan foods are closer to the “real” cost. So while this one is a pet peeve because I just want to pay the same as everyone else, I could understand this price inflating if that were the real reason. However, I think it is just good old fashioned gouging.

Vegan options all in one spot

This one is more of a wish than a pet peeve I guess, but it would be utterly fantastic if vegan-specific products either got a special coloured tag at grocery stores or were all clustered in one area of the store. At the moment, the cool and frozen products tend to be together in their respective sections (albeit sprinkled together with vegetarian and gluten free and low fat – all things very much not vegan or just irrelevant to veganism) but the other products are often dotted around the store. Probably the former idea of a bright tag would be better as you cruise around the store, but either way I’m sure there are countless products that I simply miss which is unfair to the producer….and to mah belly! 😂

To end on a positive note though, I’m very thankful for all the people that are doing their best to give vegans a growing bounty of options! One day soon we’ll see a real respect by stores, food companies and the general public alike in accepting vegan foods as a genuinely profitable area worth exploiting at the benefit of our planet, our animals and us. 😊

844e0ae3da7976db794bd5cfe8c5a5e9

Vegan foods reviewed – part 4

I’m excited to be getting back into reviewing products, especially now that there are both so many new foods to try but also so many new vegans every day choosing a cruelty-free life! To those who might be reading, kudos to you! Even though longer-time vegans are generally good at scouring the shelves and internet for any new products, I thought I’d put my 2 cents in as well since it’s harder to find groupings of reviews in one place. Eventually I hope to make it a separate and searchable area, with links to products.

vegan-symbol

These reviews are particularly geared towards former omni eaters who are keen to have that meat or dairy favourite available as a tasty cruelty-free equivalent.

Ratings are for what I consider the important elements of an appealing food product, with “Texture” being one that you might not normally see for other food reviews, but to me it is quite indicative of the success of a meat or dairy substitute. I choose “Value” over “Price” as vegan foods are generally more expensive than their meat or dairy counterparts (or rather, the latter are unreasonably and irrationally cheap given what they are) so I choose to focus on how good they are for the amount you pay.

On to today’s reviews:

PRODUCT: FIFYA – KALE, ROCKET & WHITE BEAN DIP
Type: Snack food
Country of origin: Australia
Quality Food World

overall-5

2505264-fifya-vegan-dips-kale-rocket-white-bean-250g-web
The title of this dip isn’t the most enticing you’ll come across as, on their own, none of these things are that mouth-watering items of desire. However, the way that FIFYA has combined them where the white bean becomes the creamy binding element giving it a smooth texture and the spiciness of rocket and the other flavours like pumpkin seeds, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and olive oil round out the dip in a very appealing way.

FIFYA does a variety of vegan, gluten free, preservative free dips like roasted eggplant & parsley, pumpkin & roast capsicum plus sweet potato to name a few. I intend to try them all in due time and I’m not sure how I came to try the kale one before these more obvious choices with “roasted” veggies (my fave) given that kale is low on my veggie list (not my fave). I’m glad it happened though, as it is a satisfying dip for snacking.

The most impressive part of this dip is the flavour which is punchy and a nice balance of savoury elements, and is perfect on crackers, pita or with fresh cut veg. The texture is smooth and good, although perhaps a bit runny and lumpy as far as dips go, but it’s not a big issue. The dips represent ok value; I am not sure if it is because they are a smaller company or if by adding “vegan” onto something they can charge more, but at $2 per container more than most of their competition for ingredients that are far from exotic, $5.50 is a bit high to pay for a 250g dip. Being 100% vegan, I will reach for it if I’m tiring of hummus but I would buy even more often if it were a bit lower in cost.

PRODUCT: CHICKPEA AND CAULIFLOWER MASALA BURGER
Type: Burger patty
Country of origin: New Zealand
Bean Supreme

overall-5

On first viewing of these Bean Supreme products, I find the packaging quite appealing: clean, modern and super-tasty looking food. I would be very surprised if a meat-eater would look at that image and not be seduced into trying it.

That does happen a lot with vegan foods I suspect, but the trouble is that the flavour doesn’t always match the what the image is selling. Unfortunately, even with vegans – most of whom started out as meat and dairy eaters – there is an expectation that certain foods that look a particular way will taste how we have become accustomed to them tasting. I pity the vegan product-makers who create foods with amazing flavours but someone who has a preconception might reject it simply because it doesn’t precisely match what they were expecting. Anyway, I digress…

What does that all mean with regards to Bean Supreme’s Masala Burger? Well, unfortunately the image oversells the product by a fair amount. When I first saw the raw patties, I was reminded of the ABC show The Checkout which has a segment that displays a product’s marketing photo vs what it really looks like. This was kind of the same: the patties were yellow and thinner with speckles like seeded mustard. Still, I hoped for the best and thought that as they browned they would look like the photo.

I baked them as it suggested that was a “healthier” way to prepare them, but when I took them from the oven they looked a bit anaemic, so I gave them a fast fry to brown them up. They looked better but were very dense and fairly dry compared to the juicy-looking photo. This is one of those cases where a beefy looking image was a omnivore’s nightmare, with a very-beany patty with blandish flavour. I didn’t get a sense of the intended “fragrant Indian spices” and it even was hard to dress up with some bbq sauce which I resorted to in the end.

At $8.60 for 4 patties, they weren’t the most expensive patties but they also were not that cheap, and given the competition in this category, I’d likely opt for something else before having these again.

PRODUCT: VEGANAISE
Type: No-egg mayonaise
Country of origin: USA
Follow Your Heart

overall-4

Organic-vegenaise This item has been around for awhile so it’s far from revolutionary, but it continues to be a shining example of how a vegan product can so effectively eclipse the item it is emulating.

Follow Your Heart has a lovely backstory of four vegetarian friends getting together 40 years ago to do a business that followed their ideals. You can see that there is a lot of love and successful tinkering in this product as I would say it is near-perfect. When I was an egg-eater 6+ years ago, creamy mayo had me hooked…I didn’t care for the low-quality stuff and ones that had a funny texture that was “slippery” and broke apart (like Hellmann’s) but rather liked Thomy’s very creamy and flavourful type. Vegenaise finds a good place in between flavour and texture-wise so it is as appealing as a spread as it is as a dip (the latter of which I am guilty of using it more often than anything else!).

I haven’t tried the organic version side-by-side with the regular version, so I don’t know if there is a real taste difference. I also love the garlic version which is much more aioli-like but not overly garlicky. Their byline is “better than mayo” and while I’d say that it is “as good as high-quality egg mayo” in terms of taste, the fact that it is eggless makes it far, far better.

The only thing that knocks down my score in terms of value is that I still don’t understand why there is a mark-up on vegan products when they contain no exotic ingredients (you’ll hear me harp on about this a lot 😝). At $9 per 473ml jar, it comes in 50% more expensive than gourmet egg mayos and twice as much as “regular” egg mayos. Even taking into consideration industry subsidies and economies of scale, I still think it is unnecessary to charge so much. If Follow Your Heart has been around for 40 years, they shouldn’t be considered a boutique brand anymore either.

Price rant aside, it’s one of my favourite daily-use products!

Vegan foods reviewed – part 3

It feels like I’ve semi-abandoned the vegan and sustainability part of this site but I’m getting back into it as I ramp up my focus on plant-based living and working.

The last products I reviewed were 5 years ago and wow, have things exploded in the vegan realm since then. The expanded range of options in every food group is impressive and exciting as the vegan movement takes hold of the world’s meat and dairy eaters. There are so many good dairy-free options now too, that I suspect even on-the-fence vegetarians might finally ditch their one last hold-out to full vegan eating!

I’ve made this page more extensive and visual, and will try to give variations on the same product type in order to truly compare the options that you have. I generally review products that have meat or dairy equivalents since otherwise they can just be called “food” since anyone can and does eat them.

vegan-symbol

These reviews are particularly geared towards former omni eaters who are keen to have that meat or dairy favourite available as a tasty cruelty-free equivalent.

On to today’s reviews:

PRODUCT: UPTON’S NATURALS – MASSAMAN CURRY
Type: Prepared meal
Country of origin: USA
Upton’s Naturals

overall-5

I have seen Upton’s moustached men gracing their product boxes on grocery shelves for a couple of years now, but was only just made aware that this Chicago-based brand has been around since 2006. Their website shows off an impressive and mouthwatering array of products, many of which we still don’t get here in Australia (I’m looking at the seitan chorizo and mentally willing someone to distribute that here!) I did, however, note that this particular one that I am reviewing – the Massaman Curry – is a “Product of Thailand” so I’m afraid to ask if the ingredients are sourced in Thailand, shipped to America to prepare and then shipped to Australia for us, meaning there’s a whopping 25,000+ kms of fossil fuels attached to this item. Eeek!

Pushing that aside for the moment, their local distributor has just started importing the Massaman and I have to say, it is bloody delicious. There is a slightly enhanced zestiness to it that I wouldn’t say is my vision of a typical “massaman”, but it doesn’t matter because the plate is empty before you’ve had long to critique that point. Rich with flavour, crisp and fresh-tasting veggies, firm and flavourful tofu – it really was a satisfyingly delish meal.

The meal comes in microwave-ready vacuum-sealed plastic pouches, with separate purple rice, curry and crushed peanuts. My only peeve is that the package says it is “2 serves” which is quite wrong. It is only a 280g/480Cal packet and the serve that I heated up was smaller than my usual single-serve of curry (and I don’t eat exceptionally large serves by any means). It is really just a light lunch size but not a dinner for 2 or “I’m rather hungry” size. Because of this, the $9 price point is a bit steep for what it is. It may well be more expensive due to importing from the US (but then I do see it at US online retailers for US$6 so that’s comparable). I could understand the seitan or jackfruit or other specialty “meats” being a bit pricer, but non-organic tofu, rice and veg shouldn’t jack up the price that much.

Overall, a great choice for a guaranteed delicious meal, though not 100% “massaman-ish” and a bit pricey for the size you get.

PRODUCT: NUTTY BRUCE
Type: Nut milk
Country of origin: Australia
drinkbruce.com

overall-5

Far and away the best nut milk I’ve come across to date. It is pleasantly creamy and not watery like so many long-life almond milks (probably due to having 2-3 times as much almond and coconut than other mylks). It only comes fresh (not in long-life tetra packs) so that might contribute to its more “lively” flavour too.

It is organic, has no thickeners, is slightly sweet (brown rice syrup) and is perfect for nearly everything I might have used dairy milk for in the past. When I go back to other almond milks, they taste limp and bland by comparison. Other coconut milks just taste like watered down coconut cream you’d use for cooking. It also doesn’t separate in tea or coffee like other organic milks I’ve had (I’m looking at you “Australia’s Own”).

Price-wise, it’s also the most expensive compared to any of the long-life milks. At normal non-sale price, they often sit at nearly double the price of others. Given that the others almost seem unpalatable now that I have had Bruce, it seems like good value, though it still adds up and I cringe a bit when I pile on 3L in the cart at over $17!

The brand is fun, it’s local and I love em! Yummmm!

PRODUCT: ALTERNATIVE DAIRY CO. – CHEDDAR BLOCK
Type: Non-dairy cheese
Country of origin: Australia
Alternative Dairy Co. (FB)

overall-4

Dairy cheese is a strange confection as it has a property which makes it congeal and go gooey, and for some reason we have found this to be appealing. I would be lying if I said that I am not attracted to this feature when it comes to pizza or lasagne or Mac n’ cheese, but it’s still a weird thing. So of course we want our dairy cheese substitute to have the same characteristics, but many vegan cheeses struggle to simulate this well.

As far as rating a vegan cheese, this is a semi-important feature in my book as it does bug me when you make a pizza or toastie and the cheese is in a semi-solidified state even after cooking for awhile and now it is at risk of burning.

Alt. Dairy Co. has found a happy place where their cheese has excellent texture, bold flavour without a dominant coconut oil taste and pleasant meltability. It is still just cheddar, but you wouldn’t feel embarrassed to serve it to your bovine-breast milk-loving friends. High snackability on crackers or straight off the block. The feature that bolder flavoured non-dairy cheeses I’ve had might be the potato starch which I think might be the secret agent to making good faux cheese. Another favourite brand of mine, Vegusto, use potato in theirs and it is also delicious and not relying just on coconut oil to get by.

Overall, this is a great effort from a local company who are just starting to make headway with their brand. I look forward to trying more of their offerings!

Aussie vegan products reviewed – part 2

**Originally written in 2013, with some updates in late 2018.

Continuing on with my newbie vegan ways, I have gone out at last and visited some proper vego/vegan stores like Goodies and Grains (a groovy shop in Adelaide which sells mostly organic stuff, but also vegan, fair trade and so forth; a lot of the organic grains and such can be purchased in bulk). I might also end up going to one of the good online sellers as well as they fill in a couple of the gaps and are slightly cheaper for some things.

One thing I learned today: organic non-dairy vegan food ain’t cheap!

When I got home, I had to engage in some “sport-forking”. If you’re not familiar with this, it is the tearing open of all the new stuff you bought and doing the rounds taste-testing each item. Very fulfilling! 😀

Anyway, on with some reviews.

NOTE: I am coming from the perspective of a recent/former meat-eater who is not trying to show how much different vegan products are from their original counterparts, but rather if they can stand alone as decent things to eat, while still trying to somewhat satisfy my cravings for the originals. So I’m not going to come down too hard on them unless they are just truly nasty-tasting, but they will get top marks if they are both delicious and provide a great replacement for the original meat or dairy product.

I finally managed to find some non-dairy yogurt, non-dairy vegan cheese that was promoted as being very good, and dairy-free chocolate:

PRODUCT: VEGUSTO NO-MOO PIQUANT
Type: Non-dairy cheese
Country of origin: Switzerland
Vegusto UK

overall-5

VegustoPiquantBETTER277x277

Vegusto is an multi-award-winning company that has been around for a few years and produces vegan meats and cheeses that are 100% natural ingredients and have an impressively substantial list of things that their products are free of like palm oil, GMOs, gluten, casein, cholesterol, trans-fats, and many more. I have only seen their cheese products here in Australia but some of their meat products looks amazing and I hope they come here soon too.

With this “No-Moo Piquant”, the first smell that hits you is smelly cheese…a good sign! Flavour-wise…wow! Very impressed. Easily could be some unique variant of hard cheddar or even a blue-veined style. Not too sharp but just right. No funny aftertaste or suspicious flavours within.

Texture-wise, it has good cheesy character; it crumbles like aged dairy cheese though is slightly waxy. When brought to a wine and cheese party, diary-cheese eaters were enjoying the flavour though it still doesn’t quite rival what people would see as the nuanced best of dairy cheeses. It’s not a melty type of cheese, more of something you’d put on crackers or eat in a ploughman’s lunch or on a cheese board.

At around $11 for a 200g block, it outpaces most fancy dairy cheeses and so I would consider it in the “occasional purchase” category. If it were down to about $7, I would consider it good value. It sells in the UK for about £5 which is AUS$9 so we’re not getting ripped off much considering it’s come from Europe but it still seems a bit high for what it is.

PRODUCT: COYO COCONUT YOGHURT W/PINEAPPLE
Type: Non-dairy yoghurt
Country of origin: Australia
Como.com

overall-5

Coyo tells the story of founder Henry Gosling who has the claim-to-fame of being the originator of yoghurt made from coconut. (If this is true, his fantastic innovation has become the industry standard in non-dairy yoghurts, now, updated in 2018).

The first of their products I tried is the pineapple version (dairy, soya, gluten & palm-oil free). Their mandate is: “no empty calories, fillers, preservatives, additives, refined sugars, or artificial anything!” They use high-quality vegan cultures and are certified organic.

This is a beautiful confection. It’s like eating a piña colada with that lovely pineapple flavor (comes in other flavors too). Smooth and coconutty…yum! A very luxurious product (UPDATE: pineapple seems to have been removed from their 2018 line-up, replaced with chocolate, mango &passionfruit, plum & guava, and vanilla bean)

Texture-wise, I am not sure I would call this yogurt as the consistency is more like sorbet or mousse-like dessert. These aren’t bad things at all but I am not sure I’d put it with my oats in the morning. It’s a bit too thick and decadent!

At $5 for 300g or $9 for a 500g tub (Adelaide, 2018), it’s fairly pricey…probably the most expensive coconut yoghurt I tend to see on the shelves. It is luxurious and delicious, organic and clearly made with love by a small company, so that brings up the value a bit. Once coconut yoghurt can compete head-to-head on price with dairy yoghurt, we’ll see a real conversion from dairy I believe.

QUICK REVIEWS

Alter Eco Dark Twist Organic Chocolate (organic, fair frade, soy and dairy free) FLAVOUR: This one has an orange flavor built in which is quite nice. It is wholly reminiscent of other dark chocolates I have had (this one is 60% cocoa) which is a good thing! Easy to enjoy. TEXTURE: very difficult to tell that this Swiss-made chocolate is lacking dairy. PRICE/VALUE: $5.95 for 80g bar so about 25% more than an equivalent Lindt I suspect.

I also bought some Veganpet Vegan Dog Food today ($4.95 for a 400g tin) and my dog ate it, so that’s a good sign! The ingredients have all sorts of yummy veg and so on, so I’m not surprised really. It smelled like a veggie curry.

I’ve got some Wot No Dairy yogurt to try and a couple of other Rice and Almond milk which I’ll get onto to in the coming days.

Aussie vegan products reviewed – part 1

Since I am very fresh rolling with my recent decision to become a vegan/vego, I figure that I may as start classifying what I eat not only for helping people out there but even just to remember what I’ve liked and haven’t on my journey.

It’s early days and I haven’t gotten any further than the local Woolies so the variety is pretty non-existent so far. But it’s somewhere to start and to be fair, Woolies seems to be trying hard to do the right thing with their ‘Macro‘ line of goods, and clearly identify non-dairy options within that line. Woolworth’s has strikes against it however which may preclude shopping there much, as they contribute heavily to gambling addiction in this country and own an awful lot of pokie machines. Buying goods is never as straightforward as you think, now is it??

To kick veganism off, I wanted to replace certain things right away: milk, yogurt, cheese and no meat of course. So I started with:

Macro (Woolworth’s) Vegetarian Soy Cheese with chives. FLAVOUR: Quite nice, subtle chive taste; not too sharp. Slightly bland otherwise. TEXTURE: good cheesy character; grates easily; melts pretty well and has a cheese-like mouth-feel. PRICE/VALUE: $5 for 200g so expensive-ish
Parmalat Soy Life Yogurt – Vanilla Creme flavour. FLAVOUR: I like vanilla so it was quite faithful to that. Vague soy element but overall quite yogurt-like. TEXTURE: very yogurt-like in texture and consistency. PRICE/VALUE: $3 for 2x175g so not much more than other individual-pack yogurts. I couldn’t see a bulk one but would buy that next time.
Macro (Woolworth’s) Organic Almond Milk (sweetened; tetra pack) FLAVOUR: Other than subtle almond/soy flavour, very milk-like when drinking straight. I imagine you could easily disguise it as milk in anything. TEXTURE: same consistency. Would be hard to detect as not milk in tea/coffee/cereal, etc. PRICE/VALUE: $3.39 for 1 litre so about 2.5 times the price of a Devondale tetra 1 litre. I like that it is organic though as its competitors aren’t.

I couldn’t find any other cheese or yogurt substitutes in Woolies, and they didn’t do a mayonnaise alternative there. I did buy a Sanitarium Soy Milk (So Good) but haven’t tried it yet. I’ll be seeking other replacements this week at a couple of dedicated health/vegan shops and online.

My meat-eating lately really had been restricted already to once a week or so with beef and chicken but nearly daily with fish (smoked or tinned salmon). I decided to try some meat-like soy items as I wanted to make pizza. So I got some pepperoni and also some bacon:

Sanitarium Bacon Style Rashers. FLAVOUR: Kind of not really bacon but also just bland. Bacon has such an intense flavour that it really needs to be amped up here. In a BLT type sandwich, you could barely tell it was there. On the fry-pan, it does manage to get that bacon smell though and if you cook it to near crispy it’s a bit better. TEXTURE: as I would expect, simulating bacon’s texture and mouthfeel is tough, and this doesn’t really come close or tries to really. More like a processed sandwich meat. PRICE/VALUE: $4.50 for 145g so expensive-ish compared to real bacon and doesn’t really deliver.
Sanitarium Pepperoni (spicy). FLAVOUR: Better than the bacon for sure. Pleasant to eat directly and on a pizza it was quite effective. Not as intense as real meat, but pretty good substitute. TEXTURE: a bit similar to the soy cheese in texture. Or the bacon perhaps, but that is more like real pepperoni. PRICE/VALUE: $5.75 for 200g so about twice the price of normal pepperoni.

I’ve heard about a chicken product by Beyond Meat in North America which is supposedly the first non-meat product to have nailed the mouthfeel and flavour of chicken. This makes me very excited and I hope it’ll make it to Australia in the near future. I’ll be in Canada/US mid-year, so if not before then, I’ll see what it’s like when I get there!

EDIT: Some research on soy has alerted me to just how bad these unfermented products are for us except in extreme moderation. Check out my blog entry on this!

I’ll keep updating reviews as I get products over time!

Clever Creatures

Clever Creatures

Vegan food reviews

Vegan foods reviewed – part 6 (USA edition)

PRODUCT: CLEAN SOUTH – VEGAN BUFFALO WINGS
Type: Prepared meal
Country of origin: USA
Clean South