Vegan Products for 2015

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Steve's ice cream

Ohhhh Natural Products Expo West, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Sweet Earth Bacon

I guess this Sweet Earth vegan bacon has been out for awhile, but I’ve never seen it at my Whole Foods, and I very rarely go to Target (which is apparently the one store that carries all of their products). At the expo booth, they were serving virgin bloody marys with this bacon as the garnish, so I will of course be doing this at home soon. It’s really yummy, and it doesn’t have a consistency similar to bacon at all, which is what I love about it. It reminds me of the Morning Star bacon I used to buy before I went vegan. So good! I wish it were organic, but otherwise, the ingredients are pretty healthy. I only wish that Sweet Earth was an all-vegan company. I hate label reading.

Beyond Meat

Beyong Meat for sure had the most clever booth with their mock McDonalds. I don’t know who’s in charge of their marketing over there, but I’d like to meet them! Brilliant! They even gave out cute little happy meal toys to those waiting in line.

Beyond Meat

Beyond Meat

They gave out a little hamburger and some chicken sticks. The hamburger tasted way too real for my liking, but I heard some omnivores talking about how it was good but didn’t taste authentic enough. Shows what I know! The breading on the chicken tenders was thicker than the ones on gardein chicken nuggets (maybe because it was gluten-free?) so I wasn’t a huge fan of those either. I guess I just love plain chicken strips from this company (so I can bread them and fry them myself at home).

Calafia

I’ve been a fan of calafia since they first came onto the market with their almond milk. Then my interest waned when the consistency of their milk changed to be thicker than I prefer. But then they came out with their almond milk creamers which I love! I nowwwwww this!!!! Triple shot cold brew bottled coffees!!! I cannot wait for these! I haven’t had a bottled vegan ready-to-drink coffee beverage that I’ve liked until now. The mexican mocha flavor was sooooooo gooooood.

Field Roast Chao

Colormate

Colormate

I’ve been on the hunt for natural vegan food dyes for basically ever (good, bright ones…not those stupid India Tree ones that just make everything look like different shades of brown). I saw this company in Republic of V awhile back, and when I went back to buy it, they didn’t carry it anymore. So, you can imagine how excited I was to see the Color Garden natural food coloring booth! They even had cookies and a cake that they had decorated using the coloring so you could see what it actually looks like. I got a sample that I be testing out soon and reviewing on here hopefully. So excited!

Daiya Alfredo Mac n Cheese

Daiya is coming out with 3 flavors of mac n cheese. The 2 cheddar flavors aren’t good. But, this alfredo flavor is delicious enough for all 3 of them!

Daiya Alfredo Mac n Cheese

Daiya Supreme Pizza

The new Supreme Pizza was my favorite of the 3 new pizza flavors. They formed a partnership with beyond meat to make a sausage pizza that seriously reminds me so much of the Zpizza vegan pizza with the topping they call veggie burger crumbles.

Daiya Supreme Pizza

Newest Daiya Pizza with white sauce

Daiya chocolate cheesecake

I was already prepared for what these Daiya cheesecakes would taste like because I’ve made a cheesecake using Daiya creamcheese by following the recipe on their website. I’m not a fan. It just doesn’t taste the kind I’m used to because they’re no-bake cheesecakes. I like the baked ones. However, the amount of cacao in this chocolate flavored one was just enough bitterness to counterbalance the flavor of the daiya creamcheese that I don’t care for, so I actually thought the chocolate cheesecake was good. I didn’t taste the key lime one, but I heard it was good as well, which makes sense because lime is an overpowering flavor as well.

Follow Your Heart

The Follow Your Heart booth was so adorable!

Follow Your Heart

These new cheeses they came out with are super yummy! They’re way better than the other follow your heart cheeses, and definitely on par with Chao Cheese.

Follow Your Heart

Look how cute these little baby lunch box size ones are!!!!!

Gardein

I’m a weird picky-pants when it comes to mock seafood, so I didn’t think I would like these Gardein crab cakes, but I was wrong. Very wrong. And the guys at the Gardein booth were super nice and helpful and told me about the restaurant we ended up having dinner at that night since I had never been there before. If you haven’t been to Healthy Junk in Anaheim, I highly recommend it!

Gardein Fish Fillets

Again, Gardein impressed me with their fish sticks. Although, I did hear some others saying that when they bake them according to instructions on the package, they never taste as good. I guess I just need a Gardein employee to come home with me and feed me.

Justins

I know we all love Justin’s PB cups, so of course, a cuter mini version of them made me fall even harder in love.

Luke’s

I took this picture for Kimmy because she love love loves these crackers!

Glob

Glob

Another vegan food color company?! Yessssss! This one is made by Glob, which I recognized because they make all-natural fingerpaint for kids. I was lucky enough to get a sample of this as well, so when I test out the Color Garden natural food coloring , I’ll be testing this as well.

Owl’s Brew

Owl’s Brew

Owl’s Brew

Owl’s Brew

Owl’s Brew

As you can tell by the million pictures, Owl’s Brew won the award for cutest booth. I fell in love. They were also serving craft cocktails, so that could have helped. They told me I could find these at BevMo, so I went to BevMo a few days later looking for them, but they said they were discontinued. *sadface*

Pacifica

I’ve been paying a lot of attention to nail polish lately because I really like painting my nails, but I don’t like all the chemicals. Pacifica is a brand that claims to be free of 7 of the toxins that are commonly found in nail polish. I’m hoping to review them soon, but if you’d like to see a list of polishes that are vegan, check out my newest blog post.

Scotch Naturals

Scotch Naturals is another company that is free of 7 of the toxins. They said they just reformulated their product to make it better, and I smelled it, and it actually did smell odorless! I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m hoping to do a review soon.

Pur Gum

I really like the cinnamon flavor the best. Not a fan of the pomegranate.

Rebel Kitchen

Rebel Kitchen won the award for the coolest booth. Seriously?! The white brick wall with the cutest-ever black graphic. They make these coconut milk drinks. I liked the chocolate one. I hesitate to compare it to Yoohoo, because who the hell knows what used to be in that stuff, but it was slightly reminiscent. Now everyone knows how old I am. Secret’s out.

Stacey & Mom

These dinners were yummy, but the chick who worked the booth either hated me or hated her life. She was not nice at all. When I asked her why they didn’t use organic noodles (they used all organic ingredients except for the noodles), she rudely informed me that there’s no such thing as organic rice noodles. I didn’t argue with her. I just moved on.

Steve’s ice cream

Steve’s!!!!! I was so happy that they were there. I’m seriously a psycho fan of this stuff. I’ve been a regular consumer of the chocolate salted caramel ice cream ever since Sprouts started carrying it. I tried to visit their warehouse when I was in New York. (Psycho fan status)

I also love the trader joes speculoos cookies, so you can imagine my glee when I saw this at their booth! I almost couldn’t contain my excitement, so instead of exploding, I politely (read: psychoticly) informed the booth attendent that I basically already invented this flavor when I made ice cream cookie sandwiches on national ice cream sandwich day with the speculoos cookies and Steve’s cinnamon cold brew coffee ice cream. They didn’t have security escort me out, so either I did a good job acting normal or they were just very, very nice.

Steve’s

Steve’s

TruJoy vegan starbursts were at the Surf Sweets booth. Are they the same company? They must be. Not everything they have is vegan, but they do have vegan starburst and vegan tootsie rolls!

TruJoy

I’ve had this cheese before in London, but so much time had passed that I had forgotten what it tasted like. It’s quite similar to the Chao and the new Follow Your Heart cheese. Some vegan food blogger speculate that all three companies are partnering with the same manufacturer in Europe which is why they’re all so similar.

Violife

I think Kimmy told me about this before, but these white sauces are seriously mouth-watering.

Victoria Vegan

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