Product Review: Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet Cheese Alternative

I learned about Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet from a book called Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, a diet book that promotes a vegan diet as a weight loss method. They say, "Are you a cheese addict? No problem. Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet makes a kick-ass substitute in mozzarella, Monterey Jack and nacho. It even melts! It rules."

So I figured I'd give it a try. I'm not a vegan, but I have been trying to cut down on meat and dairy in my diet. Besides, I like trying new things. I've tried a number of different soy cheese substitutes and one almond cheese substitute. These are not typically vegan, because they contain casein, which is a protein found in cow's milk, and is the reason that many people are allergic to dairy products. I've gone through two packages of Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet, to give it a full and fair chance. Both packages were the "cheddar" style.

I can only say that if this is what gourmet is to a vegan, I won't be changing to that lifestyle anytime soon. Raw (unheated and uncooked) Vegan Gourmet is gritty and slick, and tastes like a cross between Velveeta and that powdered cheese you get in instant macaroni & cheese. About the Skinny Bitch claim that it melts: it takes either a higher temperature or a longer time (I haven't determined which it is) than regular or even most soy or almond cheeses do to "melt". I can't use the word in relation to this product without quotes because that's not exactly what happens. Vegan Gourmet doesn't actually melt per se, it simply liquefies. Also, if you'll glance at the nutritional information panel included with this article, you'll see that 60 of the 70 calories of this cheese substitute per serving are from fat, so I'm not certain that it would of any use in a weight loss plan. This makes it, in my opinion, an odd choice of recommendation from a weight loss book.

Try making a quesadilla with it, and you may scald yourself as the liquefied goo flies out when you flip. The goo that makes it back into the heated pan eventually shrivels up to sort of thin, skin-like substance. Worse, it stays liquid for a long time, putting you in danger of a stream of this fake cheese flowing down your chest as you bite into a hot sandwich. Flowing like the food-colored water and vegetable oil blend that, from looking at the ingredients, it so clearly is.

There are two positive things I found about this product. The first is that, unsurprisingly, it makes decent macaroni and cheese, if you like the kind that comes in a box with powdered flavoring. As it happens, I do, so I may well buy this product in the future for that specific use. If one were lactose or dairy intolerant, it might be a good way to put macaroni & cheese back on the menu. The second is that it is gluten-free, which for someone living with celiac disease is a requirement.

Whatever jaded marketing hypocrite came up with the name for this stuff has either a) never tasted it, b) never enjoyed food to begin with or c) never learned the definition of the word gourmet or d) a deeply, deeply twisted and ironic sense of humor about their job. I suspect that they were all of the above. Follow Your Heart's Vegan Gourmet cheese alternative is not a product I would recommend for general use.