Alright, since we’re getting into the warmer weather now (thank God), I thought what better food to review then an ice-cream sandwich? Might as well help you out with your summer treat shopping before it gets too hot to think.
This was actually one of the first vegan ice-creams I tried. I remember back before I went vegan and my brother brought these home, excited he found an ice-cream that me and my family could eat, without us being there to help! He was pretty proud of himself, and it wasn’t too long before he started buying the boxes in two’s – and those would maybe last a week. Sometimes, I went to have one, only to discover that there was only one left – and no one else in my family had gotten to them!
Perhaps the best part of that story? My brother isn’t even vegan – and he devoured them like that for a few summers!
One thing that’s cool about the Tofutti company, is that they make all kinds of different tofu-based products, which makes their cream cheeses, ice-cream and others perfect for people who can’t/won’t eat dairy.
Specifically speaking about these vanilla sandwiches, they come 8 to a box, each individually wrapped in paper and are pretty small. I like that they ran with the small-ness of them and decided to call them Cuties, but practically speaking, if it’s 40C and you need a good cool down snack, you’d need to eat two.
The chocolate cookie is nice and soft, which I like. I’d take soft cookies over hard any day – but one sort of con about their softness, is that sometimes when you unwrap the sandwich, bits of the cookie sticks to the wrapper. It’s no problem to lick the extra off when you’re at home, but if you were to bring these to a summer BBQ or get together, it’d be sad to see it go to waste.
The ice-cream itself is actually pretty surprising when you remember that it’s made out of tofu. It doesn’t taste like you’re eating tofu, it just tastes like ice-cream. (I was equally amazed when my friend Blair made chocolate ice-cream out of sweet potato!) It’s not overly vanilla-y and is pretty ‘plain’ as far as ice-cream flavours though – you won’t find any crazy chunks or chips in this. It’s simple, yet satisfying.
There’s not really too much else to say about it – I’d love to rave about how amazing it is, but that would be lying. It’s great if you want a simple ice-cream treat that you don’t need to scoop into a bowl – and I’m betting it would pack nicely in a lunch bag – but I can’t give it a glowing review.
It’s good for what it is, but I’ve had other ice-cream flavours that I like better, simply because they aren’t as simple. I still definitely eat them, but I would say these are like giving nooch a glowing review. It’s good for what it is, and it’s great to have on hand, but you can’t exactly praise it. It just kind of… is.
I would dare even say they’re a summer staple. Great to have, but doesn’t pack as much punch as say, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. I recommend you try them, since you won’t be disappointed, but you won’t exactly be jumping for joy, either.
This is the second entry in my new Vegan Nutrient collage series, (check out the first post here), and I figured the simplest way to go about this series would be in order of the most asked questions new vegans get, (and most asked questions new vegans are bound to have).
That’s why this entry, is focusing on calcium.
We definitely have no need to consume cow’s milk (or sheep, or goat), and with all the terrible side effects, why would you want to?
Not to mention, it’s an unnecessary and cruel industry. Seriously, why would you willingly fund such horrors?
Starting from the top left corner, going clockwise:
Tahini 325mg
Fortified Non-Dairy Milk 200-300mg (depending on which kind)
Seasame Seeds 280mg
Tempeh 215mg
Almonds 200mg
Tofu 150mg
Seitan 142mg
Figs 120mg
Oranges 50-60mg (depending on size)
Blackberries 40mg
Black Beans 294mg
Kidney Beans 263mg
Chickpeas 210mg
Soy White Beans 175mg
Romano Beans 160mg
Navy Beans 125mg
Collard Greens 350mg
Turnip Greens 250mg
Spinach 230mg
Kale 180mg
Bok Choy 158mg
Broccoli 95mg
These are in no way the only plant based sources of calcium, but they are the Top 22 that have the most calcium in them (per 1 cup).
With only needing 1,000mg/day of calcium, you can see how easy it is to meet your daily requirements with plant foods.
I hope you found this collage helpful, whether you’re a new vegan or veg-curious.
Next month, I’ll be talking about vegan sunscreens.
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The first time I saw this product, I thought I was going to hate it. I have very un-fond memories of eating a warm, margarine, Kraft single and bologna sandwich while in elementary school. Let me tell you that that is not an easy taste you forget.
Fortunately, this doesn’t taste like vomit, so that’s a win!
Now, I don’t know if it’s just because real bologne is made kind of like hotdogs, being just a big mismatch of all the leftover meat parts that other (better) products didn’t want, but real bologne is just nasty to me. Maybe it’s tied in with those terrible, terrible sandwiches, or maybe it was just a stigma that my family had passed down to me, but you couldn’t get me to go near real bologne with a ten-foot pole.
This bodes really well for this product, because it doesn’t taste anything like what I remember bologne tasting like. I actually like these deli slices better then their faux chicken and faux ham – I think this one tastes the best! The other two products just don’t taste anything close to the original in my eyes – the faux chicken is too smoky and the faux ham is just… they’re not my favourite options.
I guess it’s easier to make a good tasting faux version of something if the original tastes bad? Perhaps faux spam could be a big hit, who knows?
Another thing I like about this product, is that it’s versatile – you can make a cold-cut (faux-cut? Eeeh?) sandwich with it, heat it up in a wrap, or even cut it into strips and make faux bologne bacon – it tastes good either way. Hell, you could even roll it up and put a toothpick through it as an easy app, it totally works to be eaten by itself.
(Not the best picture, but this wrap had: Yves Bologna slices, cucumber, Wee Bit Spicy Cheesy Rice and Daiya Mozz Shreds, all wrapped up in a Whole Wheat wrap)
Also, it’s one of the easiest findable pre-made vegan products. Metro, Loblaws, Sobey’s – even No Frills carries it! That’s definitely a plus when out shopping. It’s not the most exciting product, but if you’re in a pinch and need some quick products to throw together a sandwich, or a wrap this product is perfect.
One of the other perks, is you can freeze it without sacrificing its quality or taste. (On their FAQ page, they state that products can be frozen for 1-3 months.) So, you could buy a pack and throw it in the freezer for those times when maybe you’re not close to a store, or for time when you don’t want to run out to a store for only one or two items.
The only downside I think there is about this product, is that each pack only comes with 10 slices, so it goes pretty fast.
All in all, this product is about as great as regular lunch meat. It gets the job done, is pretty versatile, and can be easily found. I’d recommend you try it if you haven’t already.
*Not all of Yves Veggie Cuisine products are vegan. If you’re going to try some of their products, be sure to read the label! (Usually, their vegan products are labelled as such)
This might just be the oldest question in the book there is pertaining to veganism. Even before going vegan, I knew protein wasn’t just in meat – it honestly baffle’s me that some people think that.
However, if you are genuinely wondering, yes, plants have protein, sometimes even more so then animal products!
This new Vegan Nutrient series will be focusing on just that – vegan sources of nutrients. This series is for any new vegans, the veg curious, and any/all family members/friends, etc. who are concerned for the well-being of the vegan they know.
I decided to start with protein, as this is still the #1 question most vegans get asked about. Next to calcium, iron and B12 (which I’ll also be covering)
So, to put your minds at ease, and to give you a nice easy to read poster (perhaps you can print it out and tape it somewhere for ease of access?) here are the top 23 sources of protein for vegans: (per 1 Cup)
Starting from the top left corner, going clockwise:
Seitan 62g
Tempeh 41g
Tofu 11g
Peanuts 56g
Almonds 48g
Pistachios 48
Cashews 40g
Brazil Nuts 32g
Walnuts 32g
Soy/White Beans 29g
Black 15g
Kidney 13g
Pinto 12g
Garbonzo Beans 12g
Buckwheat 24g
Lentils 18g
Quinoa 9g
Peanut Butter 50g
Peas 9g
Spinach 5g
Raisins 5g
Sunflower 40g
Pumpkin 64g
As you can see, and will hopefully continue to see throughout this series, there are many different plant sources of protein, and all the other essential nutrients needed to survive. Also, with people only needing roughly 40-60g of protein per day, there shouldn’t be any problems in getting enough.
Hopefully these collages will help put your mind at ease that a vegan diet has all the nutrients you need – minus the cruelty! (This is just one video about what happens to chickens, don’t worry – there’s videos for cows and pigs, too.)
Ah, pizza. One of my favourite foods on the planet. It’s hard to go wrong when you’re giving me pizza. Perfectly acceptable to eat for every meal – it has all the food groups, y’know.
Frozen pizza is good, but it’s more of what you settle for when you can’t get to the real thing. It usually does the job and fills/satisfies, but is nothing compared to it’s freshly prepared counterpart.
Or at least, that’s what I hear non-vegans describe it as. I don’t know if maybe it’s the novelty of being able to buy a frozen pizza instead of making my own at home (which I still do) or perhaps Daiya just has a stronger frozen pizza game, but I’ve never had that ‘this is gross’ feeling when eating a frozen pizza. All the frozen pizzas (which, to be fair isn’t that many) I’ve tried have been pretty good. This one is my favourite that Daiya makes.
It was also the first way I tried Beyond Meat and I gotta say, even frozen and mixed with other toppings, I loved it. Since tasting it at A&W in burger form, I’m definitely a fan. While I don’t want to say the Beyond Sausage is the one reason it’s my favourite Daiya pizza, I’m not gonna lie – it definitely helped.
The pizza minus the Beyond Sausage is pretty uneventful – it’s Daiya cheese with veggies. If you like Daiya cheese and veggies, you’ll like it. Although, for some odd reason many vegans don’t like Daiya cheese, so I guess don’t buy their pizzas then?
I would personally like there to be more crust, but even still, it’s one of my favourite thin crust pizzas. It’s not so thin where it flops under the weight of the toppings and doesn’t even rip when you bite it (looking at you Pizza Nova), but it’s definitely not a thick crust.
Another thing I would say they could improve on, is that the toppings go all the way to the edges of the pizza – there’s no crust handle! How am I supposed to hold the thing? Underneath like a madman? No. Give us that edge to hold onto – it would definitely make dipping it in say, HotforFoods’ Ranch dip easier.
(This picture isn’t the supreme pizza)
All in all, this pizza is pretty good, not overly floppy, has a decent amount of toppings and it’s a good size for being a ‘one person’ pizza. I usually cut it into 8 slices and eat half now and save half for later. (Or sometimes I just eat it all) It’s definitely my favourite out of the pizzas I’ve tried from Daiya. I would recommend you try it if you haven’t already.
Vegan Stop is a new online fully vegan grocer for Canada who had reached out ‘to some of Toronto’s vegan leaders’ via Instagram on Feb. 1st to let me know they had just opened their online store veganstop.ca.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find this message because a) they think I’m a vegan leader in Toronto? That’s so cool! And b) they actively sought me out and wanted me to check them out? Double cool!
I was also excited to try out a vegan grocer specific for Toronto ever since V Word Market closed. Vegan Supply is a bit too far for me to order from.
Needless to say, I did check them out, and I’m here to share my experience with you guys.
*Disclaimer: this post is in no way sponsored by Vegan Stop*
I checked out their website that same day, and found it very easy to navigate. They even have a Search by Brand option which is a very handy addition. That first day, I went for some ‘classic’ premade vegan food brands: Daiya, Tofurky, Gardein and Earth Balance. (I had just been searching for Earth Balances Cheese Square crackers the previous week and really wanted to find them)
As expected, since it was the first day they launched, they didn’t have very many products for each brand, and they didn’t have Tofurky products at all.
I asked them about it, and they told me that they were expected to get the Tofurky products in over the weekend. I decided to wait to place my order until after that. I also gave them a few suggestions for the website, and as a thank-you they gave me my own special discount code, for which I’m very grateful!
I checked out their FAQ’s, and was again pleasantly surprised to see that they said that they aimed to have mostt orders out same day, or within 24 hours. Again, this was a huge plus for me, as other vegan online places took anywhere from a few days to 1-2 weeks to deliver. I also loved that they are strictly Canadian (for now, at least).
About a week or so later, I went back to the site, and again used the Search by Brand option. (I really love being able to search a store this way) I immediately scrolled down and found Tofurky, eager to see which products they had. To my disappointment, they only had deli slices, no sausages. (Not hating, I just wanted the sausages)
I went over to Daiya and saw that while they didn’t have the Monterey Jack Block (my favourite block of Daiya, and hardly anyone has them anymore!) they did have the Alfredo sauce! I was sold as soon as I saw that and decided to get some stuff to make alfredo pasta. I headed over to Gardein and got some Beefless Tips, figuring I could probably use them in place of the Tofurky sausages for the pasta.
I also got Gardein 7 Grain Crispy Tenders and Amy’s Kitchen Alphabet Soup (another one of my fav products). I didn’t want to get too many things in the first order until I saw what the shipping would be, and how long the order would take.
I went to the Check Out page and again was happy to see they accepted Paypal. (You wouldn’t believe how many places I can’t order from because they don’t accept Paypal)
The Check Out process was very easy to navigate – on par with the rest of the site – and I was glad to see that shipping was only $9!
Their prices are cheaper then I’ve found at other places as well. For example, the Gardein Beefless Tips and 7 Grain Tenders are $4.49 each, compared to $5.99 at Vegan Supply.
The Alfredo Sauce is $8.49, compared to $9.49 at Vegan Supply as well.
And, perhaps the best price difference: Daiya pizzas are $8.99, which is a whole dollar off from other places I’ve seen them for $9.99, or even $10.99!
Altogether, using the discount code, my order was $20.51, which, is a much smaller bill then it would’ve been elsewhere. And, that was the total including the shipping price.
Buying the exact same items at Vegan Supply, the same bill came to $23.17, not including shipping. Their cheapest shipping option was $16.83. That would’ve made my grand total $39.80 for the same order, and Vegan Supply didn’t even have the Amy’s soup! They also require you to purchase cold packs for refrigerated/frozen items, which are $1.50 each.
That’s a $19.29 difference for the same food, and, it would’ve been slower delivery.
That’s crazy!
I strongly urge you to check Vegan Stop out. They’re still new, so there may still be a few bumps in the road, but for that price difference? It’s definitely worth it.
I am very happy to have this new online grocer, and am looking forward to becoming a regular customer.
With Valentine’s Day being tomorrow, I thought what better food review then a chocolate bar?
Whether you’re celebrating V-Day with a special someone, hanging with your friends, or flying solo, there’s no reason why you can’t indulge yourself with one of the best vegan chocolate bars I’ve tried.
One of the best/surprising things about this bar is that it’s made with rice milk. Why is that surprising? Well, usually, when something is made with rice milk, it has a certain taste about it, where you can tell it was made with rice milk. This bar, however, doesn’t have that taste much at all. Especially if you’re eating it by itself (instead of binging on a bunch of different vegan chocolates) you can hardly tell it has the ‘rice milk’ taste. It just tastes like… well, chocolate.
Another great thing about this bar is that it’s not bitter at all. Maybe it’s just me, but before discovering vegan chocolate, pretty much the only chocolate I could eat was the Lindt Excellence chocolates, and let me tell you, those are super dark chocolates. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s hard to enjoy more then one or two squares when something is that bitter.
Feeling like you need to chug water after eating chocolate is never a good thing. I’m just not a fan of extremely bitter chocolate. I’d prefer to leave that to my once-in-a-blue-moon coffee.
This bar also comes in a half decent size. I don’t know if you saw my Go Max Go Foods review, but let me tell you, as much as I love their Twilight bar, it’s so small! I know it’s the size of a regular non-vegan Mars/Snickers, etc. bar, but it’s so good, why can’t it be bigger? Maybe they do it on purpose so you buy more, or maybe they just don’t think someone would eat a bigger bar? (They’re wrong, I would totally eat a giant Twilight bar)
This bar is a half decent size, it’s about the size of the Lidnt Excellence bars. I also like that this bar is wider then it is thick – since this is their classic, there’s nothing fancy like caramel or nougat – it doesn’t need to be thick. As much as I love chocolate, biting into a solid thick piece of chocolate isn’t all that fun.
Since it’s the classic bar, I feel like there isn’t all that much I can review for it, other then it tastes pretty good, and doesn’t have any bells or whistles (like the aforementioned caramel or nougat), so if you’re someone who likes chocolate but not all that other stuff, this would be a good place to start. iChoc does make other bars with some ‘extra’ stuff in them (like their Choco Cookie bar has bits of cookie), but I’ll be reviewing those later.
The last thing about this bar I want to say is that it’s somewhat easier to find then the Go Max Go Foods bars. For Go Max, I had to go to a specifically vegan grocery store (like Good Rebel), but for the iChoc bars, I’ve seen them at Healthy Planet, and Foodland. It seems that stores that have a bigger vegan selection might have them (although I haven’t specifically checked Loblaws or Metro). That’s another bonus, I like being able to do my shopping all in one place, and unfortunately all the specialty vegan stores in Toronto are on the opposite side of the city I live in, so it’s a treat to find the vegan things I need in a non-vegan grocer (that’s not 50min away).
I’m not entirely sure if there’s Foodlands or Healthy Planets outside of Canada, but I would say, if you’re looking for the iChoc bars your best bet would be to go to either a specialty vegan store, or the grocer closest to you that has the biggest selection of vegan foods. And I think you could order them online, too.
One thing I’ve learned since beginning this series is that there are a lot of websites that don’t list the ingredients in their products, and a lot of companies who aren’t willing to give out this information – even when you let them know you’re writing an article. (Apposed to trying to steal their recipe)
Many sites don’t even list allergens, which, I didn’t even know was allowed.
Anyway, that’s why on this Surprising Vegan list, there are companies listed that make labelled vegan chocolate.
I was also surprised to learn about just how many companies are making vegan friendly chocolate! I didn’t think I was going to discover so many!
Starting in the bottom left corner going counter-clockwise:
Endangered Species Panther
Endangered Species Grizzly
Endangered Species Elephant
Endangered Species Owl
Endangered Species Chimp
Endangered Species Tiger
Endangered Species Tamarin
Endangered Species Bat
Endangered Species Puffin
Endangered Species Rainforest
Endangered Species Wolf
Endangered Species Turtle
Endangered Species Penguin
Endangered Species Ram
Pure Lovin’Denman Island Cocomilk Cherry Cashew
Pure Lovin’ OrganicFair Coco-Milk
Pure Lovin’ Roasted Nut Medley
Pure Lovin’ Almond and Wild Blueberry
Pure Lovin’ 71% Dark
Alter Eco Seal Salt
Alter Eco Salted Almonds
Alter Eco Quinoa Crunch
Alter Eco Crisp Mint
Alter Eco Blackout
Alter Eco Super Blackout
Lindt Excellence 70%
Lindt Excellence 85%
Lindt Excellence 90%
Lindt Excellence 99%
iChoc Classic
iChoc White Vanilla
iChoc White Nougat
iChoc Choco Cookie
iChoc Super Nut
iChoc Almond Orange
Pure Lovin’ Zazubean Sassy Pomegranate and Hazelnut
Pure Lovin’ Zimt Coconut Crisp Bar (Raw)
Pure Lovin’ Zimt Nib’d Bar – (Raw)
Pure Lovin’ OrganicFair Midnight
I was so pleased to learn how many vegan chocolates there are out there. Endangered Species makes a whole vegan-friendly line, and each purchase goes toward helping endangered species of animals (hence the name), Pure Lovin’ is a completely (Canadian!) vegan company, making much more then just bars (they also have vegan chocolate cremes, and chocolate solid dinosaurs!),and Alter Eco also has an entire vegan line of chocolate.
I discovered two other completely vegan chocolate companies: Pascha and Giddy Yo-Yo.
And, Guylian chocolates has some vegan chocolates as well.
I didn’t include Pascha and Giddy Yo-Yo in the list above because they’re 100% vegan companies, and these Surprising Vegan lists are supposed to be foods found from non-vegan retailers. I also didn’t include Guylian because their products aren’t available in Canada/US.
There you have it, my list of Surprising Vegan chocolates. If you have any surprising vegan chocolates I missed, or have an idea for another Surprising Vegan food list I can do, feel free to leave it in a comment below!
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I can’t believe it’s already been another full year! It feels like just yesterday I was writing my 2nd Year Veganversary article – and now I’m already writing the next one? It’s crazy!
Again, it’s hard to know what to say in these posts – do I encourage you to go vegan with me? Do I talk about some of the hardships of going vegan?
Wait, I know. How about a quick food montage? Back before I was vegan, I basically ate the same three things over and over. But since I’ve been vegan? I’ve tried so many different kinds of foods, and even discovered some foods that I didn’t know existed before! (Like Nooch, seitan, oyster mushrooms and black salt)
I not only have expanded my taste buds by trying premade vegan products (like Daiya, Gardein and Tofurky), I also learned how to cook, and I’ve gotta say, I can make some pretty kick-ass things in the kitchen now, compared to the not knowing how to boil hot-dogs before.
Check out all the cool, new shit I learned how to make:
This is literally wheat gluten, water (or vegetable broth) and spices. It’s magic! And tastes awesome. I love getting to spice the food right from it’s conception – it gives it so much more flavour, instead of starting with a whole, plain slab of meat and then only putting the seasoning on the outside.
Also, you can turn this into any meat you want – the way you spice it gives it it’s flavour. And, because you’re hand shaping, you can also make it look like whatever you want.
You could even just leave it together and make a roast out of it, if you really wanted.
The possibilities with seitan are damn near endless.
And it’s got 62g of protein/1C. So, y’know you don’t have to worry about dying from protein deficiency.
Taquitos? I didn’t even know these were a thing before I discovered them at Good Rebel, and then learned how to make a homemade version.
Side note, if you live in Toronto, you should definitely check Good Rebel out. They’re small, but it’s like a vegan wonderland in there, they have so many products! Also, their egg and sausage breakfast sandwich is amazing.
Mozzarella sticks is something I never had before going vegan, let alone know how to make. This recipe I actually got from The Vegan Zombie.
There are a lot of different foods I never tried until I went vegan. Not even just ‘typical’ vegan foods – like seitan, or durian (which admittedly I still haven’t had) – but ‘normal’ foods, like garlic bread, poutine, milkshakes – pretty much anything that had milk in it, I never tried.
Uhm, hand-rolling sushi with no fish? Oh yeah, I did that, too. It was fun! And apparently because of my small hands, I was naturally good at rolling them.
These I made from my favourite vegan Youtuber, HotforFood. Lauren makes amazing vegan food videos, and makes a lot of ‘regular’ foods (ie burgers, wings, etc.) and not just salads. I highly, highly recommend you check out her channel, and that you buy her cookbook 101 Recipes to Feed Your Face. I was lucky enough to get her to sign it at this past years’ Vegandale festival and have made only a few things out of the book, (one of my favs is her Ranch dip) but am very excited to continue trying out more of her recipes.
I learned how to make chocolate cupcakes from scratch, and was pleasantly surprised that my vegan egg substitute of applesauce for eggs worked! The last time I had tried this switch, I was making brownies, and it didn’t exactly work out.
I also invented my own Cherry-Pie Cupcakes after learning how to make the cupcakes above. I’ve made these the past 2 years for my dads’ birthday and he absolutely loves them. (These pictures are a bit ‘foggy’ because I had icing on the camera)
It’s not even just the foods I’ve learned how to make, there’s also a whole world of restaurants and pre-made foods I never would’ve discovered had I not got into veganism!
Poutine! It’s always a win. Look at that deliciousness!
Globally Local I’m a fan of – and they’re not even available in Toronto yet! I had the great fortune of trying them at the festival both years, and neither was disappointing. (With the exception that they aren’t in Toronto!)
Hogtown Veganis in Toronto, and this thing is amazing, too. It’s giant, delicious, and was actually the first time I ever tried seitan – and that was even before I went vegan! It’s since become my ‘regular’ order when I go there. Some of my other favourites of theirs is their poutine, mac n cheese and chick’n burger. I highly recommend you check them out as well, if you’re ever in the neighbourhood.
These guys I only tried once, but again, was blown away. The sandwich was awesome, and it saddens me that they’re all the way in Texas. Also, those were oyster mushrooms? Whaaat?
Salted Caramel cupcakes are a must! I loved these so much and was very upset I was only able to buy one.
I won’t give you the total play-by-play, I’ll leave my food adventures on my Instagram. Also, if you want to check out the reviews I did of the above restaurant foods, you can find them here.
With all the awesome vegan restaurants opening, and all the new products that are becoming available, it’s becoming so easy to go vegan.
Also, if the food wasn’t enough to convince you, maybe this will:
Whether you’re thinking about going vegan for the animals, your health, or the environment, you can’t argue with numbers like these. 1,000+ animals saved in the 3 years I’ve been vegan by doing nothing else but changing my diet? Can I get a hell yeah?
Being vegan is one of the most passive ways to help save the planet and animals that I can think of. You don’t have to go out and protest, you don’t have to talk about it. You can be a quiet activist and vote with your dollar.
With so many great options available, and so many stats outlining the dangers of not going vegan, I’m truly baffled that some people haven’t gotten on board yet. I mean, I haven’t been vegan forever, but I don’t think I ever tried debating that animal agriculture was good for the environment, or that murdering innocent beings was right.
Seriously, how are there still people who think veganism isn’t the answer?
Want to check out how much YOU save by being vegan? Do so here!
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In keeping with the cold-outside/winter is coming weather, I decided I’d go ahead and do a review of a classic cold weather food: soup!
If you saw my Surprising Vegan Soup collage, then you’ll hopefully have stocked up on some delicious soup to keep you going long after the holidays are over.
This is also going to be the last Product Review of 2018! (They will continue to go up on the 13th of every month)
Okay, without further ado, here’s the Habitant Garden Style Vegetable soup review.
The first thing I want to address is how f*cking big of a can of soup this is. Seriously. They’re 796ml – that’s easily enough for two bowls of soup. (Maybe even three) Why does Habitant only make such giant cans of soup? They’re usually located on the bottom-er shelves in the soup aisle because they’re so friggin’ big. I don’t know why exactly they make cans of soup for giants, but I’m 100% here for it. I like that this can offers a lot of soup, especially because it’s pretty cheap. You get a lot of soup-per-dollar.
One thing I don’t like about this soup isn’t even related to taste – it’s that there’s no tab on the top to open it. Look, I understand that not every can needs a pull open tab, but (especially because the can is so big) having the tab on the top would make it much easier to open without taking the entire top off, so you can close the lid back down and save it for later, instead of having to pour it out into a container. It’s not that big of a deal – I remember back before those easy-open tabs weren’t even a thing – it’s just something to keep in mind.
In terms of cooking, it’s really easy. Just open, heat on a stove (or in the microwave if you do that sort of thing) and serve. Very simple process. Even people who can’t cook can do it. This also bodes well if you’re really sick and would like something easy and fast to make, so… two birds?
Now, for the actual taste, it’s… soup. If you read my Amy’s Alphabet soup review, you’ll know that I’m not really that big of a fan of soup – I don’t know what it is, I just prefer my meals to be solid.
I don’t hate soup, I just would rather eat say… a sandwich instead. Soup is weird though, you’ve gotta admit that. It’s closer to a beverage then a meal. They should start selling soups in juice containers. That would also make it easier to save some of them for later, so there you go. Take note Soup World.
I don’t want to knock this soup – especially because it’s one of the few that aren’t marketed as being vegan that we can eat – but there’s honestly not too much to it. It tastes exactly how you would expect it to: like vegetables in some broth. It’s not overly salty like I’ve had in some other soups, and it doesn’t taste too watery either. It’s well balanced in terms of it’s flavours, and it has little grains of I think rice (or really tiny pasta shapes) in it as well. That helps fill you up better then soups that don’t have pasta/rice in them, in my opinion.
Other then that, I don’t really have too much to say about this product. It has vegetables in it (so it’s good for you!), is very easy to make, and comes in one of the biggest cans of soup I’ve ever seen. It’s a triple threat!
All in all, I’d recommend you check out/try this product. It won’t exactly blow you away with how amazing it is, but it doesn’t suck. And, especially if you have a hard time finding specifically labelled vegan products where you are, this can I’ve seen pretty much in every store I’ve been in. So it should also be easy to find.
