Found and tested: Grocery shopping or treasure hunt?
Almost every time I go to the supermarket, I end up discovering something I was not aware of being intentionally or accidentally vegan.
Disclaimer: the products, creators, authors and books mentioned are sincere consumer opinions, from my point of view as a plant based enthusiast seeking to improve life... my way. None of them are paid advertisements.
If it does not have the visible yellow V logo, you gotta get your granny-glasses and read the “minimum font size 6” text at the backpanel of your product.
Good thing that almost during my entire college time, I got bombarded with concepts like: preservative, stabilizer, thickener, emulsifier, binding agent, acidity regulator, etc; so I am not easily horrified by the long unpronounceable hyphenates.
To speak a positive point on the food industry: on hindsight, in the last two decades I have seen the evolution of ingredient “transparency”. Starting from unfolding the “E-numbers” to its real chemical name, to banning certain colorants and polymers that are best not considered as harmless food ingredients, to openly declaring at the front panel the sugar-salt-fat-protein content. Furthermore, the complete “nutritional information” is something that nowadays the customer expects, therefore the food company makes extra efforts when designing the packaging artwork to declare stuff like vitamins, cholesterol, fibre…
I just hope someday this transparency reaches the packaging part of the product, declaring more than just the recycling symbol and go hardcore on what is actually in your packaging that touches your food for its entire shelf life. Not everyone goes into the European Commission website and downloads a 100 page PDF (the famous 10/2011 directive) with all the restricted substances coming out of plastic… I´m hopeful that one day we will see this same ingredient transparency, but for packaging.
Back to treasure hunt.
Maybe important to clarify: when I feature a photo with many products, they are not the ingredients for one recipe! See next photo. Not that I have whole grain wrap shmeared with hummus and topped with Alpro strawberry yogurt. No. I take pics when I´m excited about a find, a discovery, and after being tasted I knew deserved accolades or the opposite. So these photos were taken impulsively and kept idle for months until this little blog of mine came to life.
I will probably repeat myself about how Alpro helped me transition to a dairy-free life. If you try their soy yogurts (also puddings and Skyr!) with an open mind and not expect them to be a 1:1 substitute but more like a nice healthier alternative, then you will be surprised at the wonderful Alpro fruit range and consistent quality.
Their latest launch is a lower added sugar lineup but as textured and tasty as original recipe. Strawberry fields forever. It reminds me of the single portion yogurt cups I had as a child with huge jammy fruit chunks generously swirled… minus all the cow suffering.
Also featured: The Hummus that tastes like Falafel. This is a personal favourite find from Rewe. It really does taste like chickpea-on-chickpea inception. I have tasted my share of packed hummus in the last year or so… so hear me out when I say that this particular one has a relatively low taste of its preservative/acidity regulators.
The wraps, well… they are ok. I bought them because you know… the size, 25cm! Not much to say here. I wish they could hold their structure better. But on a different note: if you have access to a Turkish supermarket, try their assortment of flatbreads. They keep only a couple of days (good sign for low funky chemical content) but the taste and texture is a gamechanger. You will go into wrap/burrito-overfilling heaven every single time.
I made this post (link here) on how glad I was to see a German giant like Dr. Oetker to have non-dairy versions of their products. Not a lot of variety, not widespread, but if you want a thick sour cream substitute, VEGA is a very good one.
Luve yogurt made out of Lupin (a cousin of Andean Tarwi) is probably be the closest I have tried to cow-milk yogurt. The acidity, texture, mouthfeel and absolutely neutral taste is top notch in the plant based yogurt world.
Bedda cheeses -or any plant based cheeses for that matter- I must post separately. Too complex, way too complex for a short paragraph in this miscellaneous post…
Let´s briefly talk about margarine though.
As a Peruvian, if you grew up in the 80´s like me you were brought up with margarine as the flagship for the no-cholesterol marketing. I am surprised to have made a boomerang return almost 30 years later.
During my unfortunate affair with the paleo-keto diet, I became reluctant of “processed vegetable oils that are solid at room temperature”. Let´s not kid ourselves: margarine is exactly that. Hydrogenation of highly refined oils is un-natural food processing. But, when finally making the link to cow suffering and butter (milk-fat as an industrial food ingredient) being top-three climate change contributors, it made me open up again to the margarine world.
For those times when you wanna avoid the taste of coconut oil and olive oil is just not the thing for that particular recipe, then Alsan-Bio, featured in this photo. Close enough. Texture, mouthfeel, performance in baking and don’t forget the vintage paper-alufoil packaging! You don’t need to go back. Give it a try. That´s all I´m sayin´!
Must you know: I am in full falafel benchmarking everywhere I go (since it has been more than 18 months now, I assume at one point I will get a degree in falafel). Turkish, Persian, Iranian or Lebanese. All the falafel. All things falafel. This includes the dehydrated mixes, like this one from Alnatura (DM also has a decent one). I find it quite convenient.
#imnotashamedtomakefalafelfromdrypowdermix
Proper falafel making requires you to plan ahead of time: soak your dry chickpeas overnight and have an array of fresh herbs at hand. I tried that a couple of times when I had oodles of time and energy. But, honestly? If I am craving good falafel, I buy it fresh to-go at my fast food Lebanese joint. For weekly meal-prep, I just pour hot water over this dry mix, roll those balls and bake. Minimal effort and makes for days of ok-ish falafels. They dry out fast, so I recommend to use them as filler for wraps rather than eat them on their own.
But the star of this photo has gotta be that small tub of “pate” (“Pflanzstreich. Art Pfälzer Leberwürst” = loosely translated to “Plant-spread. Liver sausage style from the Pfalz region”).
Here you go: a closeup of what the texture and colour looks like. I freaked out when I tasted it. IT TASTES AND FEELS EXACTLY THE SAME as the liver paté my mother used to make. It is delicious if you are into pate (which I am), where the grey-ish lumpy appearance is actually a must-have. Just imagine how many German vegans are demanding liver sausage spread, that a company bothered to develop a recipe, design a packaging and make it quite available (found at Edeka!). Yes, consumer´s voice matters!
Many more treasure finds to come. Stay tuned.
