People are talking about Vegan Gourmet ® Cheese Alternative!
Vegan Gourmet ® Cheese alternative was developed for Follow Your Heart ® by Angel McNall / Earth Kind. Read some of the following comments about our cheeses and decide for yourself... your taste buds will love you!
Vegetarian Baby and Child Magazine
Christina Cooks Magazine
Vegetarian Resource Group
Veg News Review
VegNews - April 2002
Veg Family - March 2002
Los Angeles Times - March 2002
The Not Milk Man
Comments About Our Products
".....I have been vegan for over 13 years and have tried every vegan cheese I could find. Most of them were terrible. Until I came acrosss your cheese a couple years ago and now that it is sold on the west side, I can have easy access to it. I just wanted say I hope you have great success because I LOVE your cheese. I sometimes put it on sandwiches, make a grilled cheese or my favorite thing to do is to make delicious vegan tacos."
- Arnold (Southern California)
"I'm a big fan of your Follow Your Heart ® vegan cheese products (especially your nacho jalapeno cheese) and wanted to let you know what I think of your newest product, the Mozzarella cheese alternative.....AWESOME...INCREDIBLE...UNBELIEVABLE...YUMMMMM!!!! Please forgive my excitement...but, because of you and your cheese alternative products, I can honestly state that there is not one single cheese flavor (or texture) that I am without as a vegan. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Now, when I have a vegan pizza I smoother it with your mozzarella cheese. Wow, it doesn't get any better than that :-)
-Jerry
"I have to tell you about my week.... 3 Bean Chili with cheese. Grilled Cheese sandwiches. Tofu Egg Huevos Rancheros with cheese. Baked Tofu sandwiches with cheese, lettuce, tomato and vegan mayo. Stuffed Shells with cheese and a tomato spinach sauce. Between my boyfriend and myself, we consumed TWO bars in less
than a week. And no, we are not sorry. At all. I cannot believe how wonderful this cheese is, how it melts, how low in fat it is, and how delicious it tastes. Thank you, and thank you to the company for delivering a fabulous product!"
-Susan (Brooklyn, New York)
".....as a topping for pizza and casserole (polenta, zucchini, tomato sauce) it was fabulous. It was great both as the "main attraction" on the pizza and as a garnish on the casserole. ... VG beats the pants off of vegie-kaas, and tastes more like mozzarella than the white veganrella does. No reason to think it's not the real thing--except for the absence of the grease pools! I'm going to shred and freeze the rest for special occasions. (It grates like a dream by the way--big, clean shreds, not messy at all.)"
- From a post on the VegSource.com discussion board
Product Reviews
Vegetarian Baby and Child Magazine
Jan/Feb 2003 issue
"Being Vegan Just Got Easier!"
Our tester says, " As an aspiring vegan, I've been struggling to find a cheese alternative that doesn't contain casein and melts. Well, here it is: Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet ® Cheese Alternative. Our family tried the caraway jack, nacho cheese, and mozzarella flavors. Mom's favorite is the caraway jack. It's great on a grilled 'cheese' sandwich or just plain. The nacho cheese has quite a kick to it, so we put it on burritos and nachos. The mozzarella is simple and works well on pizza. All of them taste great crumbled on salads or mixed with fruit. You can use them just as you would 'the real thing." The texture was a bit different, but the flavors are terrific. It helps to keep it in a moist environment to help it melt, but even unmelted it tastes great.
Christina Cooks Magazine
Review By Gail Davis
Autumn 2002 issue
It Melts Just Like Real Cheese, Honestly, It Does!
"It was worth the wait--finally, a totally dairy-free cheese alternative to cheese that not only tastes unbelievable, but melts when you heat it! From now on, your meals are only limited by your imagination. Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet ® Cheese Alternative in Caraway Jack, Spicy Nacho, and Mozzarella varieties lets you create all of your favorite cheese dishes. Imagine indulging your appetite for grilled cheese and Reuben sandwiches, nachos, quesadillas, enchiladas, lasagna, stuffed shells, and even pizza without all the lactose, saturated fat and cholesterol found in dairy cheeses. Until now, it was impossible to find a dairy-free cheese alternative that tasted great and melted too because most so-called "dairy-free" cheeses aren't really dairy free. The contain casein, a highly allergenic milk protein. But, Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet ® Cheese Alternative is giving health conscious consumers a reason to cheer. These casein-free cheeses slice, crumble, shred, and melt easily, making them ideal for all of your favorite recipes. But don't take my word for it, try it yourself and be amazed.
Vegetarian Resource Group's Vegetarian Journal
Issue 3: 2002
New Products on the Shelves
..."If you're on the west coast and are looking for a really tasty vegan cheese, try Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet ® Cheese Alternative! It's about time there was a flavorful cheese to top pizzas, burritos, nachos, and lasagna. Available in Nacho and Mozzarella styles, look for this product at your local natural foods store..."
VegNews
(July/August 2002 issue)
Email or call for a subscription - subscriptions@vegnews.com
(415)665-NEWS
VegNews Picks - Hot new veg products on the market
Vegan cheese ..... that melts! As soon as Follow Your Heart's sampler box of vegan "meltable" cheese arrived at the VegNews offices, the staff immediately began testing their claims. Imagine our sheer delight when we opened the oven to find our pizza oozing with gooey, melted mozzarella cheese. For lunch the next day, we made grilled cheese sandwiches with the Nacho and Caraway Jack varieties, and, again, the melted cheese was dripping down the sides of the toasted bread. If there is a vegan heaven, taking a bite of this warm, melted cheese is the ticket in. It even tastes great right out of the package, especially when served with crackers and fresh fruit. Vegan Gourmet ® Cheese Alternatives can be purchased at select natural food stores or ordered online (they'll ship directly to your home). Now there's no more excuses for not going dairy free!
"Natural Foods and Jack LaLanne" by Stan King
".......Cutting edge products and technology were also evident. We were pleasantly surprised by the incredibly good vegan cheese (served melted on a pizza) introduced by Follow Your Heart, a Los Angeles health food store and restaurant."
VegFamily.com
March 2002 - Review by Erin Pavlina
Angel McNall's parents named her well...she's an Angel! Why? Because she developed a line of vegan cheeses that tastes good AND melts! Currently she's got two flavors on the market, a spicy nacho cheese and a caraway jack. They come in bricks and shred or slice very easily. This is a moist cheese.
I shredded some nacho cheese and made a quesadilla with it. It melted so fast, I had to keep it from oozing onto the pan. Steve loved this cheese, and although I liked the consistency, it was too spicy for my taste. This one comes packed with jalapenos and probably isn't suitable for children. But if you like spice, you're going to love this cheese.
Next, I made quesadillas with the caraway jack. It also shredded easily and melted quickly. This one was more to my liking as it didn't bite back. I know, caraway jack isn't often found in a quesadilla, but vegan cheese isn't often found, well, anywhere, so allowances need to be made.
Angel invited me to lunch to try one of her new flavors, mozzarella. Follow Your Heart ® made us a pizza with this cheese and I can tell you this is going to be the most fantastic vegan cheese on the market. I cannot wait until it's available for me to buy off the shelf. I plan to make cheese pizza quite frequently. A recent survey conducted here at VegFamily showed that most vegans don't even bother with vegan cheese because they taste bad. That's all about to change.
I discussed the jalapeno situation with Angel and she told me she is working on a mild yellow cheese. That's going to be wonderful for the kids. Right now you can buy this cheese online and at a few, very select stores. ... And look for that Mozzarella to be out soon! I'm expecting wonderful things from Angel...
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, March 18, 2002
In the "Living" section: "The Main Course and Cause: Veggies" by Emily Green, Times staff writer
".....There is sprouted hummus from Venus of Venice, meatless beef stroganoff from Native Foods, chicken-less sweet and sour from Vegan Express, and so on. The star of the evening is a pizza made with a milk-less mozzarella that melts like real cheese."
The Not Milk Man's Daily Column
December 2002
By Robert Cohen, the "Not Milk Man"
"What do you call cheese that doesn't belong to you?"
Sarah's face was quite serious, showing no indication that I
was being set up for a really bad joke, so I gave it a few moments of thought before noticing the tiniest wise-guyish smile forming in the corner of her mouth, the kind of tell that only a poker player or father could detect. I braced myself for the worst as I responded to my 15-year-old daughter, "Okay, I'll bite. What
do you call cheese that doesn't belong to you, Sarah?" In her best New York Latino accent, she nailed me and said: "Nacho cheese." (Groan)
Yesterday, I received a sample of vegan nacho cheese, made by California-based Earth Kind, and I am elated to announce: IT MELTS!
Vegan cheeses don't contain cow's milk protein, casein, that gooey meltable malo mucous maker. Most vegan cheeses just kind of lay there, making poor substitutes for the hormone-laced "real thing." Until now, that is. A review of Earth Kind's ingredients reveals these secret components: agar agar, lecitithin, carob bean gum, and xanthan gum. All natural ingredients. Earth Kind's brilliant food scientist, Angel, has turned leaden ingredients into golden soy-cheese, and it's a winner. I spoke to Angel, and she told me that a great mozzarella is on the way. If it's anything like the nacho cheese, the dairy industry had better pack up and go home right now.
What to do with all those cows that will be put out to pasture? Send 'em to Farm Sanctuary. There's plenty of room: http://www.farmsanctuary.org/. Don't delay. Ask the produce manager of your supermarket to stock this product. Let he or she know that you'll shop at the store carrying this wonderful cheese alternative. Let your health food stores know too.
We're in the middle of a soy revolution, and you can become a player in the cheese battle of the millennium. Be a good hobbit and defeat the evil cheese-loving orcs. There is now a delicious alternative. Vegans of the world, unite! ... Most importantly, nacho cheese is delicious! Sarah made bean burritos for dinner, shredding liberal amounts of nacho cheese on shredded lettuce, salsa, and guacamole. When asked to comment about the cheese, Sarah said: "That's my cheese!"