Whole Soy is back!
The re-emergence of Whole Soy is hands down the greatest vegan triumph of 2014. Yes, the year is less than half over and Earth Balance cheddar crackers blah blah blah, but YOU GUYS. The Great Vegan Yogurt Drought is over.
If you aren’t a yogurt person you probably don’t get what the big deal is or maybe you didn’t even notice the drought. In early 2013, we suffered several losses.
1. Silk changed their yogurt formula from one that was pretty comparable to whole Soy, to two flavors of almond yogurt and two flavors of over-sweet, disgusting soy called ‘fruity and creamy’. And then they ditched the almond yogurt, which I did like.
2. Amande almond yogurt went out of production, and their attempt to start back up in another facility was put to a stop due to allergen concerns by the production plant, and not a peep has been heard from them since that announcement.
3. Whole Soy ran into production issues at the same time that Amande did.
So we were left with So Delicious and their coconut and almond yogurts, which can be kind of pricey depending on where you get them. I’d also seen Almond Dream in health food stores far away from my house. Here, I can get Silk and three flavors of So Delicious coconut. Both are a fair price and the So Delicious tastes okay, but not good enough that I want to eat it every day like I used to. I would occasionally check the Whole Soy facebook page for updates, or sing Taylor Dane to myself while wistfully staring into my fridge.
When Whole Soy started reappearing last month, a lot of people reported getting some very chalky cups of certain flavors, mostly lime and lemon. So I was a little wary, until I actually found them in a health food store. I squeaked and swept the shelves into my basket – I bought something like sixteen cups. And every time I go near a health food store I buy at least ten to last me until my next run. So i’ve eaten a few dozen cups in the last month and i’m happy to say that I have yet to get a bad tasting/chalky cup. I did get one cup of lime that was crazy thick, but it still tasted okay. And some seem to naturally be more watery, like the strawberry. I’ve tried all of the flavors except lemon, plain, and raspberry. Maybe it’s luck, maybe they sorted out their issues by the time the yogurt made it to the midwest, either way it’s worth it to take a chance.
Or, if you cannot find Whole Soy at all where you live, apparently O’Soy (Stonyfield Farms’ soy yogurt) is now certified vegan! Before, they were growing it on dairy cultures which is not vegan, and gross and weird. And oddly, I can’t find it here either! I remember O’Soy being incredibly sweet, so if I had the option I would still pick Whole Soy. But it’s great to even have OPTIONS again.
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P.S. I know I haven’t blogged in almost six months. For the past 3-4 of those months I debated making a very personal post about how I was incredibly depressed for a lot of 2012-early 2013 (and why, and why i’m a lot better now) but I wasn’t sure if I should, so I kept putting off posting anything and then finally I said to myself, “Self, you are ridiculous. You can handle a blog post about yogurt.” If you actually do enjoy the words that I make with my keyboard, I recommend following me on twitter (as opposed to following someone else, right?) because it’s the only thing I can handle keeping up-to-date.
