I Tried All the Vegan Cheeses in Whole Foods, and Here’s What I Learned

The cheaper ones are better, IMHO.

Ten years ago, vegan cheeses were awful. I remember trying a hideous brand called Teese (now defunct) and thinking I could never be vegan if I had to eat cheese that tasted like that. (I was a long-time vegetarian at the time.)

A few years ago, as I started moving toward veganism myself, the vegan food industry underwent an udderly mooooving evolution itself. (Too many cow puns? Too bad.)

First on the scene was Daiya, which remains one of the more popular vegan cheeses to date, for reasons that elude me.

I remember the first time I tasted Daiya. It didn’t taste anything like real cheese, but it did taste oddly familiar. I couldn’t quite place it, so I took a few more bites — and then, I had a very strong memory of loading up a plate at the Bonanza all-you-can-eat-slop restaurant my parents loved when I was a kid. The salty cubes of ham. The tasteless mashed potatoes. The gloppy mac and cheese.

Oh, and the shredded “cheese” you could add to a salad or anything else you thought needed more flavor. THAT was what Daiya…