Vegan ice cream taste-off!
In Seattle this past week, we had yet another record heat wave. The planet is burning, our heat pump simply can’t keep up and I have been looking for every way possible to stay cool with the kids. Of course ice cream is always a favorite solution! I’ve been buying up many of the new brands and flavors on the market to give them a try and wanted to share my experiences with you to save you some time and major coin! At $6-10 per pint (or more), plant-based ice cream is not cheap and it’s no fun to get it wrong.
Oh, the vegan hype! While I want to support and encourage this movement for many reasons, I’m sad to see so many food brands quickly moving back to the old profitability playbook, trading high-quality ingredients for low-quality garbage. Any food scientist will tell you that if you add enough sugar, fat and starch to something, you can make it taste good enough to trick most human palates…and that’s exactly what they are doing. Most of the brands that started strong with dairy-free alternatives were coming from a wellness point of view and have now shifted to a sustainability point of view. These are not one in the same! (I’m looking at you So Delicious, with your new “Wondermilk” which is nothing more than starchy sugar water!). Truly, we feed or pets better food than this.
While I wish everyone enjoyed high-quality food all the time, those of us with autoimmune conditions absolutely can’t mess around with the junk and it bothers me deeply to see folks trying to choose healthier options but being misled about what is in these products.
We can all agree that ice cream is a treat - a food that we don’t “need” but absolutely want. It’s also a big part of our culture - from summer hangs to birthday parties, we need good options to feel like we aren’t missing out on a part of life just because our ingredient choices are more narrow than our peers.
After trying more than 20 flavors across more than a dozen brands, here are a few considerations for this taste-off:
Non-Starter Ingredients:
Grains are a no-go: Grains are the most inflammatory foods those of us with EBV could eat. Oats are very hip right now, but if you have chronic illness, you’ll likely feel much better without them.
Seed oils are not meant for human consumption. Canola oil is one of the main culprits and key reason #2 to avoid oatmilk and oatmilk-based products.
Cane Sugar is highly inflammatory and should be very limited or avoided completely if possible.
Cautionary Ingredients:
Some folks are sensitive to gums and legumes (such as pea protein). These are ingredients that help create a smooth and creamy texture, but might be something to avoid, depending on your sensitivity. I find I’m highly sensitive to pea proteins so I try hard to avoid them.
Sweetener Ingredients:
Ice cream being a treat, we need to find the best possible sweetener. As I mentioned above, avoiding cane sugar for inflammation, food sensitivities and gut health is key, but here are some more considerations:
Worst: Cane sugar, Evaporated Cane Juice - this is the sweet flavor we all grew up with so it’s hard to beat the taste, but this stuff is garbage for my body
Better: Agave Nectar - still high glycemic, but less processed and not a cane/grain plant
Best:
Maple Syrup/Maple Sugar (my fave) or Coconut Sugar - these are unrefined, lower-glycemic and usually well-tolerated in small quantities (they are still a carbohydrate that can feed things like yeast in the gut so go easy)
Alternatives - Stevia or Monkfruit extract (these alternatives can have a funny aftertaste for some people) - These are the most natural of the non-caloric sweeteners. I put them in the “okay sometimes” category as they don’t yet seem to be harmful, but I’m not convinced they have zero impact on the gut.
The Holy Grail:
In my dreams, there’s an ice cream on the shelf made from cashews, coconuts and/or almonds, sweetened with maple syrup and only clean ingredients for texture and flavor. In fact, I’ve nearly perfected a recipe at home that I will share soon! In the meantime, here are the results of the taste-off:
Best in Show: Nada Moo
Nada Moo is an Austin-based brand available nationwide (ask your grocer!) and has the best combination of clean ingredients, creamy and fluffy texture and delicious flavors to choose from. The ice cream is coconut-based and the main sweetener is agave. My only beef with Nada Moo is that because the ice cream is more churned, I feel like I’m overpaying for the portions in the pint.
Honorable Mention: Cosmic Bliss
Cosmic Bliss is another national brand (that recently underwent a change in packaging). Their ice creams have the cleanest label I have found, bested only by homemade. Most of their flavors are essentially a 4 or 5 ingredient recipe and the flavor range is enormous! If you miss the 31 Flavors type experience, Cosmic Bliss has the closest range of choices. The texture is creamy but every so slightly more firm and the coconut is not as masked as other brands. I find the stronger flavors to have the best experience, but the vanilla has a hard time fighting with the coconut base to really fake out your tastebuds in something like a rootbeer float.
