Taste Test: Vegan Cream Cheese (Part II)

We are stocked up for the vegan cream cheese apocalypse.

The most terrible thing happened at the beginning of this year. The vegan cream cheese at the grocery store was out. I tried not to fret; this had happened for a week or two before. I went to look at two other stores in my town and one store by work and I began to become concerned. There was not a Follow Your Heart cream cheese tub in sight. Luckily, a family member tracked some down a few towns over, arrived with 5 (FIVE!) tubs, and saved the day.

As the weeks wore on (we go through a tub a week), I began to accept the inevitable. We would once again be forced to try other vegan cream cheeses (here's my original cream cheese alternative taste test). However, this taste test has a caveat- it’s performed by a family who has not had real cream cheese in over a year. I will make no judgement on whether or not the different “cream cheeses” taste like actual cream cheese since I do not remember how actual cream cheese tastes. Only if they tastes okay. So… HERE. WE. GO.

New and improved deliciously dairy-free? I'll be the judge of that.

Daiya

If you remember correctly, we had this one in the first taste test and it tasted like popcorn. This one promises that it's "new and improved." So the only important question is: does it still taste like popcorn?

Yes. Of course it does.

Do yourself a favor and don't buy this kind.

Bring on the cashews! Look, the apostrophe is a heart. This one is going to be great, right? Right?!

Miyoko’s Creamery

This one I was super excited about it. I had been eyeing it at Whole Food’s for a while, but couldn’t have it last taste test because my kid hadn’t eaten cashews yet. It’s only got 4 ingredients! Cashew milk, coconut cream, salt, and cultures. That sounds good, right? Cashews? Delicious. Coconut cream? Yes, please. Salt? Sure. Cultures? Like yogurt??? That can’t be that bad, right?

This had SOME FLAVOR. It’s like close to cream cheese but too tangy. Way too tangy. It’s not a cashew flavor. And it’s not a coconut flavor. It's like somebody left their yogurt out too long and then tried to pass it off as cheese. Nobody else in the family will eat it. The only way I’ve been able to take it is to eat it on a bagel as an elaborate sandwich with deli turkey, ketchup, and spinach to mellow it out.

Store brand cream cheese alternative that's made of butter beans? What could possibly go wrong?

Simple Truth Organic

I bought this when I had lost all hope that Follow Your Heart would ever be back. It’s mostly made from coconut oil, butter beans, oats. Butter beans seem like a weird choice but I thought maybe it was a cheap substitution for fava beans (which have a cheesy taste… apparently). The ingredients really go off the rails, though, when they added agave. Why do people think that cream cheese needs to be sweet? Sugar, while usually good at covering up wayward flavors, is not a welcome flavor on an everything bagel and I do NOT want it in my cream cheese. This stuff is strangely sweet and not for me. How are we going to use it up? I'm going to embrace the agave and make some cream cheese icing.

"No Butterfat" seems like a weird marketing choice, but what do I know?

Tofutti

This was by far our favorite second place. If we can’t follow our hearts, we will definitely eat some soy. My kid loves eating tofu plain so it really shouldn’t be a surprise that she liked Tofutti. It’s got a very neutral taste, which over a year without real dairy is exactly what we want. I don’t really need it to taste like cheese cheese, I just want something creamy to smear on a bagel. Tofutti, which has been around a long time (1981!) is definitely a pioneer in the dairy free space- online it says that it initially started to help people keep Kosher. It’s neutral, creamy, good. But, not great if you are allergic to soy.

Guys. Just when I had lost all hope, Follow Your Heart magically appeared FULLY STOCKED at my local grocery store. I spotted it for an aisle away, glowing with its cream cheese goodness. I picked up a conservative two tubs (I didn’t want to be the reason another family had to go without their favorite nondairy cream cheese substitute) and dug in. But, it wasn’t exactly the same as before. The texture was softer, which actually makes it easier to spread on bagels and crackers. When I checked the ingredient list, fava bean extract was gone. Was some global fava bean supply chain shortage the reason we had to live in cream cheese purgatory for so long? Even with the change in ingredients, the taste was the same. Neutral. Creamy. Delicious. Dearest Follow Your Heart, may you never leave us for so long ever again.

Meat with Vegan Problems: Biscuits and Gravy

You know how I said that I hadn’t had a lot of stroganoff and had no idea if my recipe was authentic or not? Well, that is not the case with biscuits and gravy. This is the food of my people! Best breakfast in the world. Don’t come here with your English muffin nonsense. Biscuits or bust!

There was a biscuits and gravy recipe in Go Dairy Free that I had been wanting to try. I mean, I love biscuits and gravy. But I was a little scared off by the ingredient list. Cauliflower isn't my first though when I think of gravy. But, I also had this extra dairy free “buttermilk” and I thought there was no better time for:

Cauliflower Gravy and Dairy Free "Buttermilk" Gravy

The Ultimate Showdown

Gravy vs Gravy Taste Test

Would anything taste like the real dairy thing?

A package of breakfast sausage (garlic free!) later and I was ready to go. I made the cauliflower gravy first. The gravy is essentially steamed cauliflower pureed with water, cooked down with some nutritional yeast and salt. Was it good? Yes! It wasn’t quite as creamy as the real thing, but the sausage seasoning more than covered the cauliflower taste. The best part of it? Left overs were good! Usually, gravy does not save well. No matter how you try to rewarm it, even stirring in some extra liquid never gets the texture back from congealed to pourable, delicious gravy. The consistency was a little strange- if you looked really closely you could tell it was a little grainy. Overall? It’s a great way to hide vegetables in your food, if that’s something you are into.

Zoom in on that bad boy and you can see the grainy cauliflower. But eat it without your glasses and you are good to go!

Next up, making it the old fashioned way with new fashioned left over “buttermilk”. Brown the sausage, sprinkle some flour, make the roux, add your milk. Salt and pepper (heavy on the pepper) to taste. Consistency? Perfect. It was a little sour (from the yogurt bacteria), but overall worked just like any dairy buttermilk. Left overs, not great. But that's to be expected. Overall? What could be better than smothering your biscuit in a creamy, sausage sauce? Nothing. That’s what.

I mean, if it has that much breakfast sausage in it, what could go wrong?

Either way, you are going to have some yummy biscuits. If I had to choose I might go for the cauliflower- it's cheap, it saves better, and if you aren't having the real thing you might as well eat a vegetable!

Some Mental Health Resources

All by myself. Don't wanna be all by myself anymore.

In addition to more research on epinephrine and food allergy reaction treatments, there was also information on food allergies and mental health at the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology conference this year. People with food allergies have a higher likelihood to experience prolonged periods of worry, avoidance of social situations, depression, food phobias, disordered eating, and anxiety. I can definitely attest that we have experienced an unnecessary amount of worry, food phobias (get that pack of nabs away from my baby!), and anxiety after our kid was diagnosed (and especially after we had to use epinephrine the first time). Frustration and anxiety were the main reasons I started this blog. Sure, I wanted to share helpful information, but mostly I wanted to vent because food allergies are TERRIBLE.

With all of the tweets from the conference about mental health, there was a fair number of resources that were shared. So, if instead of venting in a blog (or reading a blog that vents), you’d rather talk to an actual professional, there is a directory of mental health providers (in 4 countries, though mostly the US) that specialize in food allergy counselling AND there’s a list of resources that would have been great to read through when my kid was first diagnosed.

I think we’ve really turned some corners recently, as our toddler has stopped putting anything she can find in her mouth- it seems less likely that she will inadvertently eat a food allergen that has been left somewhere. Plus, we’ve also taken out almost everything she’s allergic to out of the house to make the prospect of cross contamination of her food lower. There’s still stress when we go out into the world, where we don’t have control of everything she comes in contact with, but hopefully with practice that too will improve.

But, so far we’ve only dealt with our feelings about our kid’s food allergies. She’s just now starting to understand that she has to eat different things than her peers. She knows she can’t have pizza on Friday, she knows that she has special milk, but for the most part I don’t think she has any idea what she’s missing (and that’s a good thing, too, because she’s missing all of the best things. Peanut butter. Cheese. Real ice cream…) As she gets older, though, I know she is going to have more feelings about what she can and can’t eat, especially at parties and other people’s homes. Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Connection Team has some good advice on what to do when talking with your kids about mental health and how to get the conversation started. As she gets older, I guess it’s just another thing to add to the list of worries. I just want her to be happy! And healthy! And not left out! But safe! But also happy!

Epinephrine in the News

It’s been about a year and half that we’ve been living with food allergies and making sure we always have epinephrine handy has become routine. I drop my kid off at daycare and tap the pocket in her lunch box that has epinephrine. I double check the pocket in the diaper bag when we are driving somewhere. It’s habit. It's become a habit because it's so important to have epinephrine with my kid at all times. 

My two year old loves to say "epinephrine" now like it's a super fun game- I can only assume she doesn't remember when we had to jab it into her to save her life.

The American Academy of Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology just had its 2022 conference and my twitter was all aflutter about it.  And epinephrine was a common theme in a lot of studies. Why? It’s the only treatment for anaphylaxis. You can try to avoid your food allergens, but if you accidentally eat something, you need to have epinephrine. One of the studies I read about from McGill University found that patients who have a food allergy reaction who got an epinephrine shot before reaching the ER were significantly less likely to develop a severe, uncontrolled reaction (reactions requiring two or more doses of epinephrine to resolve symptoms). The earlier you get the epinephrine the better.

Sounds easy enough, right? But not only do you have to have the epinephrine (and we know how hard it can be to get two autoinjectors in the US) but you also have to have it with you (or your kid) at all times. This is so stressful. My kid has to have her injectors with her at home, at school, at the park, when we visit family’s homes, at birthday parties… we hope she won’t need it, but we never know when she will need it. And when she needs it, she needs it immediately.

What happens when we aren’t around? We’ve got to make sure that all of her caregivers- babysitters, family, and adults at her daycare are trained and comfortable giving her epinephrine. Our preschool/daycare has been very receptive to all of the education we have given them. It’s been complicated by COVID, since parents aren’t allowed inside the building, but generally they have been great. 

One thing that could help take the pressure off parents to do all the education is “Elijah’s Law”. Eliajah’s Law’s goals are trying to make children with food allergies safer in daycares aby making sure their caregivers are trained and educated on anaphylaxis; including putting clear signs reminding caregivers in food prep areas what the child’s allergies are. It also increases access to epinephrine at daycares. It’s already passed in New York, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, and the Elijah-Alavi Foundation is working to bring it to other states. They have a helpful toolkit that you can download that has specific information on the goals of the law, what parts of the law are currently required in each US state/territory, and suggestions on how to contact your local legislatures. I hate calling people on the phone, but I might have to bite the bullet and see if I can get it started in my state.