sorry for the delay. i was all set to upload this episode nearly 2 weeks ago, but the laptop decided to take a nose dive. we hadn’t backed up any of our data, so i was a bit freaked out, since there were 4 episodes that have already been recorded, but not processed and uploaded. luckily it was only a logic board, and the hard drive was unscathed. *exhales* we purchased an external hard drive, so if anything happens again between recording date and upload date, all will be hunky-dory. (details and a picture if you’re interested)
here is a link to the ingredient lists of each soymilk at the time of recording. (we’re missing 2, so we’ll try our hardest to get that list up ASAP)
and here is a link to the call for brands for the eventual 2nd episode of soymilk. if you know of a brand that hasn’t been mentioned, please leave a comment and let us know.
Pile o' Soymilks (and this isn't even all of them.)
Episode 01 – Soymilks (plain and vanilla).m4a (let me know if you’ll need this in MP3 format, and i’ll upload a few of those at a time.)
here’s a selected portion of the transcript and some extra information.
hello, and welcome to the OFFICIAL episode 1 of vegan review. in this episode, we are going to be reviewing plain and vanilla soymilks. we have 2 boxes of unsweetened plain, 11 boxes of sweetened plain, and 8 boxes of vanilla. (so 21 different boxes of soymilk in all.) we have decided to leave chocolate and other flavored soymilks for a future episode. i’m sure it would have been overkill if we had tried to fit it all in here. we definitely didn’t catch nearly all of the available brands nationwide. since we had to stick to only the brands that we could get in our local stores, we couldn’t go overboard with the variety. even with these limitations, i’m happy with the variety we had for this episode. we got most of the major brands, and even a few of the generics. I’m sad that we only acquired 2 brands of unsweetened, and that we didn’t have any zensoy or wild harvest organics [oops, i meant organic valley we DID taste wild harvest this episode] …as i’m a fan of those, but because it was our first day of recording, we weren’t very organized, and soymilk is expensive these days. aah well. what’s done is done. we were just getting into our groove and we’ve learned a few things from this first day of recording. maybe someday we’ll have a round 2 with the winners of this episode and the additional brands that we didn’t taste test this time.
this episode was recorded as a blind taste test, so my apologies in advance for the disembodied head interjecting the names of the products. If you’re listening on an MP3 player with a screen, or if you’re listening through iTunes, all of the episodes will have the product lists or images of the product embedded if you wish to follow along that way. but it’s not necessary. the images and lists are just a little bonus feature. (mp3s don’t have that capability, so that is why the episodes will be m4a)
unfortunately, when we were associating the names of the plain soymilks with the corresponding numbers, we made a mistake and shifted them all 2 spaces. (this is because the unsweetened plains were bullies and took spaces # 1 and 2, and then we inadvertently misnumbered the rest. but as i was listening to the reviews, it wasn’t making sense until i shifted them, and then it made ALL the sense in the world.)
that’s it for episode 1. Be sure to check veganreview.info (or veganreview.wordpress.com) for upcoming episodes and to leave feedback or to suggest products for future episodes. we try our hardest to find a wide selection of brands to taste test, but we need your help in being as thorough as possible. the more brands we compare, the more effective these podcasts will be. Thanks for listening, and be sure to tune in next time for 11 varieties of heirloom tomatoes.
the following lists are the order in which they tasted the best with some commentary. the + and – signs are how many people liked or disliked that particular brand.
Unsweetened plain
- Vitasoy Unsweetened Organic: very creamy, a little salty, more flavor the preferred of the two.
- Westsoy Organic Unsweetened Plain: very watery, beany, very little flavor, quite a few “yucks”
Sweetened Plain
- 365 Original: nice, creamy, good, “good body” ++++
- Wild Harvest Organic: creamy, mild, good, chalky aftertaste ++++ -
- Vitasoy Lite Plus Plain: nutty, tastes like oatmilk, natural, fruity ++
- Wegmans Plain (refrigerated): “meh”, “not bad, but not fantastic”, very little flavor, watery. +
- Silk Plain (aseptic packaging): Slightly beany, not bad though.
- Trader Joe’s Original: Tastes like Vanilla, watery, Kaopectate-tasting -
- EdenBlend Original Rice & Soy Beverage: not bad, chalky aftertaste -
- Soy Dream Original: too much sweetness, tastes like raisins, tastes like rice krispies, very rice-y texture. -
- 8th Continent Original (refrigerated): watery, too sweet – -
- Westsoy Plus Plain: BAD!!!, bland, watery, “opaque water” “not bad, but not good.” – - -
- Edensoy Original: Off-taste, disgusting, tastes like chemicals, yuck! – - – - -
Vanilla Flavors
- Silk Very Vanilla (refrigerated): super sweet, strongest vanilla flavor, too sweet, not for dunking ++++ -
- Wegman’s Vanilla (refrigerated): not bad, beany, sweet, marshmallow-y ++
- Kirkland Organic Vanilla: not bad, marshmallow-y, chalky aftertaste -
- Pathmark Vanilla (refrigerated): ok, watery, pretty beany, not bad. – -
- Vitasoy Lite Vanilla: much better, tastes like soda aftertaste, cough medicine weird. – - -
- Trader Joe’s Vanilla: not sweet! tastes like regular soymilk, chalky. (smells like vanilla) – - -
- Edensoy Vanilla: really dark, eww, burnt flavor, you can taste the brown rice syrup. i don’t like that at all. (wheat and barley extracts) – - – - -
- Westsoy Unsweetened Organic Vanilla: bad, very wrong, watery, bad almond-y, “check the expiration date” (wasn’t expired) mouth feels dry. – - – - – -
Edensoy original plain was the first soymilk that I ever tasted back in 1998. I am glad that I gave other brands a chance because otherwise I would have NEVER tried soymilk again! Edensoy gets my vote for “the worst of the worst.”
i had that one pretty early on in my veggie life too. ick! luckily wholefoods had those mambo sprouts coupons for vitasoy. i would buy 10 vitasoy unsweetened originals at a time. they came out to about 99 cents. that went on for at least a year. gone are those days. *sigh*
Edensoy is awful. I’m also not a Westsoy fan.
I really like Shoprite’s brand of plain rice milk. I usually buy this or 365′s rice/soy.
I drink the chocolate cause as a non-vegan, it’s not much different than regular milk to me. Maybe I’ll get some vanilla now, I thought they were all probably awful.
which brand of chocolate do you drink, sharee? i’m a big fan of westsoy’s soyshake, but they’re really sugary and stuff. i also like organic valley’s chocolate, and vitasoy (but they’re probably not going to be around for much longer. darn you vitasoy! don’t abandon us!)
Just a thought for future reviews, saying something is “not” bad, or “not” fantastic isn’t very clear and concrete as an actual description of what it is. It might be better to let listeners and readers know what makes it “not” something–for example it’s not fantastic because it lacks all sweetness but that would be great for savory dishes. Concrete and clear is better than defining something by what it is “not.”
Cheers
i don’t know. “not bad” is a useful descriptor to me.
it may not be amazing, but it’s not foul. “not bad” means acceptable. maybe not ideal, but if it’s cheapest in the grocery store, it’d be purchased over the others.
thanks for your feedback! i’ll definitely pass it on the others and maybe we can be more clear in the future.
I had had some icky kind of soy, or rice milk, when I was younger, which kinda freaked me out about it…But, when I went Vegan, I started drinking Soy Dream. I loved that, but they changed the formula, and I tried to find a different brand.
I, then, switched to “Silk” (the refrigerated variety), which I loved…But then, they became lax on their equipment standards, making it a ‘Kosher D’ product (and, being the Strict Vegan that I am, I don’t eat, or drink things that ‘may contain traces’ of dairy, etc.).
Then, I discovered VitaSoy…which was strictly Vegan, and pretty good. And, about a year, or two later, they stopped making it. (I am, still, very sad about that. :-()
Since then, I have been trying to find a brand of soy milk that meets my criteria, and doesn’t taste like cardboard…And, still, have yet to do so.:-|
I need to mention to anyone writing, or reading this that, in my search for a new brand of soy milk, I found out, from the company, that WestSoy isn’t even Vegetarian. :-( So, please, make note of that, and doN’T be deceived into thinking that just because it’s soymilk, it’s acceptable for Vegans, because, unfortunately, it is not. :-(
~*Kristin*
wait! what’s in westsoy? do you have links?
8th continent used to have D3 in it, but they’ve since changed.
as for dairy equipment, most vegans don’t worry about it. (if you want links to discussions, i’d be happy to provide them) the reason being, that most small companies can’t afford their own equipment (and those are the companies that deserve our business the most)
From the company: “Not all WS beverages are Vegan. They are meat, dairy and egg free but may have other ingredients that are not suitable for vegan. There are flavors that may contain glycerin which may come from animal or vegetable.”
:-(
And, companies like Silk are very large companies (or are owned by large [dairy :-(] companies). And, it’s an individual decision if you want to risk contamination, or not…If it’s more important to someone to give their money to a company with a good mission, that’s fine…But, not all Vegans should feel like they have to eat/drink things that are made on ‘shared equipment’, if it’s not something that they are comfortable with.
Have you ever thought about including a little bit more than just
your articles? I mean, what you say is important and all.
But think about if you added some great photos or video clips to give your
posts more, “pop”! Your content is excellent but with pics
and clips, this blog could undeniably be one of the best in its niche.
Very good blog!