Trader Joe's Soy Slices Cheese Alternative--Cheddar Flavor

A while back, Nina and I reviewed a TJ's product with the same name as this one, but different packaging. I don't know for sure whether TJ's just changed the label, or actually changed the product composition--but I suspect the latter, for two reasons.

1. The new one says "99% lactose free," and the previous version didn't. I suspect they reformulated it to have even less dairy content than before, in order to appease both the lactose-intolerant and the impure vegans willing to make tiny compromises.

2. I described the former version as "a reasonably convincing fake cheese." For this one, wild horses could not drag those words out of my mouth.

If somebody blindfolded you, put a piece of this stuff in your mouth, and asked you to identify it, your response would be, "Limp, oily, thinly sliced cardboard." When, to your surprise, you were told that that was wrong, and you should think of a food product, you would express disbelief. You would then start guessing at random, hoping to end this stupid game. But you would get through, oh, maybe 100 food categories before desperation provoked you to guess "cheese." BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING EVEN VAGUELY CHEESE-LIKE ABOUT THIS CRAP.


Will I buy it again? 

No. It went back to the store for a refund. I'm adding it to my Bottom Ten list. Truly awful.


Nina's View

This stuff literally has no flavor. And when I say "literally," I mean LITERALLY literally, not metaphorically or emphatically literally. NO FLAVOR. None. It does not even taste of cardboard. There's a little salt, maybe. And some oiliness.

The notion that this bears any resemblance to cheddar is beyond absurd.

Seriously, TJ, get a grip.

Trader Joe's Savory Thin Mini Edamame Crackers

In texture, these reminded me strongly of the late (i.e., discontinued), lamented Sea Salt & Pepper Crisps, presumably because both are largely made of rice flour. But the edamame component adds a weird green hue to the crackers, and a slightly off flavor. They're really too small to host a hunk of cheese or dip into salsa, and too delicate for any but the thinnest hummus.


Will I buy it again? 

No. I just don't see a role for them that isn't accomplished better by several other products.

Trader Joe's Soy Slices Cheese Alternative Cheddar Flavor

These are individually wrapped slices of a reasonably convincing fake cheese.

You'd naturally think that something that is marketed as a "cheese alternative" and made of soy would be a vegan-friendly product. You'd be wrong, at least as applied to this particular item. If you read the fine print on the back, you find that it's labeled "vegetarian" but not "vegan." The label further informs, "Contains: milk & soy." After "soy base," the next ingredient is "casein (milk protein)." There's your culprit right there.

That may explain why this is better than most of the purely vegan cheese substitutes I've tried. It does have that peculiar soy flavor, but it's muted. I notice it only if I pop a bit of the stuff in my mouth naked. Er--that is, the slice is naked, not me. Though I suppose it would taste the same whether or not I was wearing clothes. But the point is that the off-taste is easily masked. Certainly if you plop it on a burger, you're not going to think "soy" when the combination hits your tongue. Something as meek as a Ritz cracker was enough to hide the soyness for me.

But you have to wonder what the target market is for these slices. Vegans won't touch them, obviously. People who identify as vegetarian but not vegan have presumably already decided that they don't object to dairy products, so wouldn't they just buy real cheese slices?

The only niche I can think of that would be interested in this, as opposed to real cheese slices, is people who are so lactose-sensitive that they can't have even the 3/4 of an ounce of cheese that a regular slice would have. That's got to be an unsustainably narrow market.


Will I buy it again? 

Probably not. I originally bought it without reading the back of the package, and so assumed it was a completely non-dairy product. Nina is making serious efforts to reduce her use of milk and milk products, so I had hoped I could offer her this as a small piece of that change. But since it's derived from milk, it's hard to see that it furthers the cause. That being so, I can't think of any good reason to choose this over real cheese slices.


Nina's View

When I first started reducing my dairy intake, the disappearance of cheese was the most painful part of the process. I loooooove cheese and was accustomed to eating a lot of it. Naturally I bought and tried pretty much every cheese substitute available.

Pretty much all the ones that I thought were at all worth eating had dairy products in them. WTF?

The others are pretty much yucky.

The good news for me is that I no longer crave cheese as I once did. I still eat it from time to time in restaurants and at other people's homes, but it has become a much smaller percentage of my diet.

Trader Joe's Soy Creamy Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert--Vanilla

The cherry-chocolate chip "Soy Creamy" blew me away with how good it was. So I had high expectations for its plainer shelfmate in vanilla--maybe higher than was realistic. Without cherry and chocolate flavors to hide behind, it was harder to disguise the non-dairy nature of this one.

That is not to say that it's bad. It isn't. It's just not "must eat all of it right now" good. It's sort of average vanilla ice cream. A really great, premium French vanilla ice cream can stand on its own. More mundane vanilla ice creams really need something to tart them up--fruit, a glaze, some chocolate syrup, or whatever. This falls into the latter category. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but also nothing particularly exciting about it.


Will I buy it again? 

No. As I write this, the container has been sitting half-eaten in my freezer for two weeks, which suggests my lack of enthusiasm for it.

Trader Joe's Soy Cheese Blend Cheese Alternative

This tastes nothing like cheese. It doesn't melt as nicely. And it's made with dairy-derived casein, so it's not even vegan-friendly.

Frankly, I can't imagine why anybody would want to use it.


Will I buy it again? 

No.

Trader Joe's Soy Creamy Non-Dairy Frozen Dessert--Cherry Chocolate Chip

As we have previously noted, Nina has been greatly reducing her consumption of milk products--and I'm not averse to substitutes if they are good ones.

This, my friends, is a good one.

I came to it naive; I had not heard or read anything about it. I just knew that I wanted to try another TJ's ice cream of some sort, and I thought this one looked promising.

When I tasted it, I could hardly believe it. This did say non-dairy, didn't it? I rechecked the label and the list of ingredients. Yep. Then how can it taste so good? How can it have the mouthfeel of real ice cream? I swear that if you fed this to me, telling me it was regular ice cream, there is not one thing about it that would tip me off that you were lying. Now, I wouldn't pit it against some of the super-premium ice creams that I have had in my life. But it's at least as good, and possibly better, than most non-premium ice cream. That that can be said of a soy-derived product is rather astonishing.

I wondered if maybe it was a lack of discriminating palate that made me easily duped, and others would see through the non-dairy ruse. Well, here's a bunch of reviews I found in the first two pages of Google results, some of them dating back to 2008, when it appears this product was first introduced. See for yourself:

Eating at Joe's blog: "I may never go back to dairy ice cream.... Vegan ice cream that [is] as good as the real thing."

San Jose Mercury News comparison test: "Except for the slight beany flavor of soy, this budget-priced dessert is a solid swap for standard ice cream."

A Soy Bean blog: "[I]t's been a LONG time since I've had Ben & Jerry's ice cream. But I do fondly remember the taste of their Cherry Garcia flavor, and this cherry chocolate chip knocks it out of the park!"

PETA Prime blog: "The cherry chocolate chip flavor starts with a yummy cherry base, not vanilla. It is so full of big pieces of cherries and chunks (not chips) of chocolate that you will feel like you are eating frozen chocolate-covered cherries. They definitely did not scrimp on this one--you practically have to chew this bowl of “nice” cream."

Kitchology blog: "Sweet, rich, and creamy, Trader Joe’s Soy Creamy Cherry Chocolate Chip had me from the first spoonful. The smoothness of the cream is perfectly complimented by the crunch of the chocolate chips and the chewiness of the cherries. In my opinion, this blows every other cherry-chocolate ice cream like dessert out of the water. Nothing can compare. Not even Ben and Jerry’s famous Cherry Garcia."

Diana Takes a Bite blog: "TJ's Soy Creamy Cherry Chocolate Chip "ice cream" is beyond compare. There is no contest -- it blows Ben & Jerry's [Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt] completely out of the bowl."

Son of a Vegan blog: "Let me start by saying it is absolutely heavenly, I swear I could hear arcs gloriously playing in the background while I was eating that "ice cream". It has chunks and chunks of cherries and a whole lot of chocolate chips so this "ice cream" is sure to please your sweet tooth."

Rookie Magazine: "Since going vegan in the late ’90s I have always been pretty content with my dairy-free ice cream options. But two summers ago, my dessert world was ROCKED when I came across this cute red-and-green container in the frozen section at Trader Joe’s—a quart of Soy Creamy Cherry Chocolate Chip. Cherries are my favorite fruit and chocolate is my favorite food period, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. Reader, IT CHANGED MY VEGAN LIFE: sweet, smooth cherry-flavored cream, big chunks of real cherry, and plenty of chocolate chips. I started telling everyone I knew that it wasn’t just my favorite vegan ice cream, it was my favorite ice cream, period! My non-vegan husband even loves it, and when my ex-vegan friend came to stay with me after living in Asia for a few years, she had the same total mouth orgasm as I did. In fact, she practically wept when she could not figure out how to take a case of it back to China. Now I just get to eat twice as much and say it’s for Lindsay. That works for me and I encourage you to eat some for her, too."

So as you can see, I'm not just imagining things here. This stuff really works as ice cream, whether or not you're consciously choosing to avoid dairy. This is one case where you don't have to settle for something that isn't as good as the "real thing."

I'm just gonna go right ahead and plop it onto my Top Ten list.

Will I buy it again? 

Yes indeed.