Vegan Life: The Vegan Police

The latest Vegan Life magazine has a great article entitled 'Naughty but Nice' about a vegan baker being lectured by the Vegan Police. Using sugar, eating vegan convenience food, or baking indulgent vegan cakes isn't 'vegan' enough for them. We've come across this before in the comments we get here at Veganoo. When we review vegan sweet treats we'll often get comments such as 'why are you reviewing this junk food??"

Happy 21st: Ethical Wares

UK vegan shoe company Ethical Wares have been trading for 21 years this year, which is a long time for a Vegan business. To mark the milestone, the company have produced an anniversary video, which we're happy to share!

Review: Parmezzano Vegan Parmesan

Another parmesan-in-a-can option for your dairy-free pasta topping. The latest in a growing line of these type of products, this Vantastic one is based on soya flour. We've seen cashew and coconut used in recent alternatives, so this one is one of the more 'conventional' offerings:

Vegan Shopper: Aldi Haul

A selection of Aldi's vegan products including stollen, mince pies, malt loaf, gnocchi, jelly and chocolate. Aldi may not have a vegan list, but that doesn't mean you can't buy vegan cake, pies, jelly and chocolate there... you just have to look harder for it.

Vegan Shopper: Supermarket Vegan Lists

UPDATE: Head straight to the Vegan Womble for the latest lists which are maintained on this page:

http://theveganwomble.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/latest-supermarket-vegan-lists.html

The hardworking Vegan Womble has gathered vegan lists from Waitrose, M&S, Sainsburys, Tesco, and the Coop, as well as Walkers, KP, Quaker Oats, Warburtons and more. We've got the links below, along with some great guides from Vegan Womble on shopping vegan in the UK:

Review: Amy's Kitchen Breakfast Sandwich

Vegan egg and sausage muffin. Egg-free, dairy-free, gluten-free. Frozen and ready to microwave for an instant hot breakfast. The marketing team at Amy's sent us a few of these to check out and they were snatched up gleefully! There really is nothing else like this on the market at the moment:

Review: BioVegan Cake Decorations

Organic vegan Chocolate Hearts, Sugar Strands and Mimosas for decorating your egg-free cupcakes and fairy cakes. Biovegan are the company who make lots of vegan packet mixes, from instant ice cream to bread mixes. These cake sprinkles are ideal for vegan home bakers looking for something special:

Review: PureFit Nutrition Bars

Vegan protein bars in Peanut Butter Toffee Crunch, Chocolate Brownie and Berry Almond Crunch flavours. 18g protein per bar, and gluten-free. We picked up these nutrition bars based on the delicious sounding flavours, but there are some good nutritional principles in there too:

Review: CoYo Ice Cream

Coconut-milk ice cream in raw chocolate, vanilla & nutmeg, and sticky date & tamarind flavours. Dairy-free ice cream that's also soya free. If you love CoYo yoghurts (and who doesn't), you'll welcome the arrival of their ice cream. It's got some interesting flavour options:

New: Provamel Natural Yoghurts

Zero-sugar and agave-sweetened options with the relaunch of the company's large dairy-free yoghurt pots. Provamel's organic natural yoghurt has been on the shelves for years, but is now available in two varieties. As well as an agave-sweetened plain yoghurt, there is a completely zero-sugar option too. The company sent us a couple of pots for review:

Review: Rhythm Coconut Milk

Virgin cold-pressed coconut milk. Raw, chilled and available in a pouch pack. You'd normally expect to find coconut milk in a can, but this stuff is different. Made from the first cold-pressing of coconuts sourced from the Philippines. It's more expensive than canned milk, so is it worth it?

Is It Vegan: Stork Block

The vitamin D might make you doubt it, but yes, Stork baking margarine is vegan. We verified the source of the vitamin D with the manufacturer (see below). The company advised us that the vitamin is plant-derived (Vitamin D2) and the product is vegan.

Review: Dandies Marshmallows

Air-puffed and super-melty vegan marshmallows. Gluten-free and gelatin-free. We picked these up in our haul from Veganz in Berlin - they're hard to get hold of in the UK. Dandies are big in the US, along with Sweet & Sara. Dandies use tapioca and carrageenan which make them ideal for melting:

Review: Secret Sausages

Chilli and Coriander flavour. Vegan sausages with skins! Gluten-free and packed with veg. The idea behind Secret Sausages is that you can get your kids (or kid yourself) to eat veg, if the veg is disguised as sausages. The range includes six varieties, but at the moment only the Chilli and Coriander ones are vegan. You can grill, fry or barbecue them - and we did!

Review: Freedom Micro Mallows

Mini machine-made vegan marshmallows for hot chocolate and rocky road. Freedom mallows are the fluffy marshmallows which made gelatine-free marshmallows a mainstream option. Vegan marshmallows used to be an artisan niche product, but no more. These 'micro' mallows are smaller than the regular ones, and we've been on the lookout for them since they launched last year:

Good Read: Vegan Life Magazine

We've had a good read through the new glossy vegan magazine for the UK, and were really impressed! This is something you could leave casually leave on the coffee table and not feel embarrassed about - it's slick, well presented and really readable. It's also available in Supermarkets, which is a major milestone:

Review: Meridian Nut Bars

Almond bar and Peanut bar with 55% nuts. Meridian are the whole food company who specialise in nut butters, seed butters and fruit spreads. Their new 'cereal' bars extend their nutty offerings to the snack bar market. Are we nuts about them?

Review: Vantastic Veggie King Prawns

Vegan shrimps made of nothing but yam powder? Convincing taste, texture and appearance... that's what it says on the pack. Our haul from Veganz yielded a few interesting things, but none caught our eye as much as these things. Vegan king prawns can't work, can they?

Preview: Veganz Supermarkets

We visited the Berlin (Friedrichshain) branch of vegan supermarket chain Veganz last week and were blown away by the amazing range of vegan products available. There is nothing like this in the UK (although the Kensington branch of Whole Foods has a lot of the US import stuff). The rumoured London branch of Veganz has been delayed, so we thought we give you a preview and share just what's on offer in the company's stores:

Review: Provamel Macadamia Milk

We finally got our hands on the new nut milk that Provamel have launched at the premium end of the plant milk market. We say premium, because macadamias are the queen of nuts - they're expensive, and so is this milk (see below). Is it worth tracking down, and 'shelling out' for...

Editor's Choice: Sojade Seitan Burgers

Juicy vegan burgers - you read that right. Juicy vegan burgers! We decided to spoil this review by giving you the verdict right away. You see the pack doesn't look very interesting, and you might skip this review as 'just another veggie burger', but these are different, they're juicy! 

Review: Naija Potent Peanut Sauce

The folks at Odeiga House sent us a couple of jars of their African and Caribbean cooking sauce to review. The sauce is available at Manchester's Unicorn Grocery and branches of Sainsbury's. The peanut sauce is a Gambian speciality made with tomato, garlic and peanut paste:

Review: Koestlin Choco Wafers

Egg and dairy-free chocolate filled wafers from Croatian enterprise Koestlin. These snack wafers can be found in discount shops and European supermarkets. Snack wafers, particularly the ones not covered in chocolate, are much more common in continental Europe than in the UK. You have to seek these out in non-mainstream shops here:

Review: Vivani Chocolate Bars

@VeganTownUK sent us a selection of these organic chocolate chunk bars to review, and we were only too happy to oblige. We've missed the quiet arrival of Vivani to UK shores, but a few other vegan bloggers rave about their chocolate. Vivani might sound Italian, but the company is from northern Germany. We've got four flavours to check out:

Review: The Little Treats Co Gingerbread Men

Pack of 20 'mini men' gingerbread biscuits from the Cheshire based bakery known as The Little Treats Co. One of our readers spotted these in Tesco (thanks Weazle65). The little men took in some summer sunshine on our review table:

Vegan Shopper: Vegan Naan Update

Three brands of yoghurt-free naan bread on sale in the UK. It's really hard to find naan bread that doesn't have dairy in it, so whenever we come across some we grab it. There's nothing like a pillow-soft naan, with that oven-baked outside and soft chewy inside. The best ones are the pungent garlic and coriander ones. We've found three brands you can buy in UK shops:

Review: Gross Friesengold Chocolate Shortcake

Dairy-free shortcake biscuits dipped in chocolate. Arriving in the July delivery of Vegan Tuck Box, these biscuits were the most tempting of the month's treats. Vegan shortcake is still pretty rare, and this kosher pack is new to us:

Review: Mamma Cucina Ice Cream

Dairy-free frozen soya dessert from the Tofutti sister brand, in Vanilla and Strawberry flavours. Vegan ice cream is in every supermarket, and there are now some great non-dairy ice creams like Food Heaven. Mamma Cucina's dairy free range includes cheesecakes, quiches and pizzas, but is their ice cream any good?

Review: Cocofina coconut snack bars

Organic vegan 'cereal' bars with coconut, dates and cocoa. We were sent these bars by Cocofina, alongside their coconut oil, coconut syrup, and coconut water which we've already reviewed. The bars are in two distinct styles - mashed fruit bars and a macaroon bar.

Review: Veggiestuff Vegan Sweets

Jelly sweets from Veggiestuff.com including sour rainbow twists, cola bottles and hard gums. The folks at Veggiestuff sent us a selection of their soft sweets for review. We've seen vegan cola bottles and hard gums before, but the rainbow twists are new. They may not have survived the mailing intact, but the taste wasn't affected...