Veganism. No, it’s not some exotic disease. It’s more like the hardcore version of vegetarianism. But did you know it’s better for the environment than the run-of-the-mill omnivorism?

It takes a LOT of natural resources to raise meat (beef, pork, human, chicken, etc.), plus it can cause a lot of pollution from animal waste (for more on environmental reasons for vegetarianisn, por favor click this here link). The United Nations Environment Program’s (UNEP) International Panel of Sustainable Resource Management reported in 2010 that a global shift toward a vegan diet is critical to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Now, I’ve forayed into the vegetarian world before (such as when I made me some black bean burgers), but I still eat my fair share o’ meat. Recently, though, I was allowed the opportunity to sample some fine vegan products from Follow Your Heart.

I have to admit, I very much had my doubts about how good all this vegan, fake-dairy food would be, but overall I was pleasantly surprised. Please continue reading for a product-by-product breakdown o’ these foods.

The vegan sour cream, while it tasted a bit different from normal sour cream, sort of grew on me. Eating it by itself wasn’t great, but really, how often do you just eat sour cream by itself? It was tasty as heck on baked potatoes, in burritos, and mixed into some tortilla (Spanish for “tortilla”) soup.

You know what vegan food tasted pretty much like the non-vegan version? The vegan cream cheese. It tasted close enough to the real deal that I bet people wouldn’t guess it was vegan if I didn’t tell them.

Now, it can’t all be good news. It’s really tough (maybe impossible?) to make good vegan cheese, and these vegan cheese shreds were no exception. I tried eating them with baked potatoes, mixed into tortilla soup, mixed into chili… it wasn’t too good, and tasted a bit like really old cheese. Not good, folks.

I’m happy to say, however, that the vegan spatula performed just as good as the non-vegan version!

The veganaise (in case you can’t tell, it’s a vegan mayonnaise) was the surprise star of the show. I thought there was no way vegan mayonnaise could be good, but this was some dang good mayonnaise. I’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between it and a non-vegan mayonnaise.

So to sum it all up, there actually are some good vegan alternatives for dairy foods like cream cheese, sour cream, and mayonnaise. I’d recommend giving Follow Your Heart a try for these foods if you’re looking to eat mo’ vegan foods.