Pre-note: When I mention “imitation products”, I mean a food item that is trying to exactly replicate a non vegan item. Something like a black bean burger is not an imitation production, it’s just an alternative.
I was bored so I started creating a tier list of vegan products and how closely they imitate non vegan products. I was trying to keep the list genericized with less emphasis on specific brands, but for some items the brand was really important.
What would you move around? What would you add? I only have a few items so far. I’ll update the list as comments come in.
S tier - practically indistinguishable
- Beef burgers (impossible, beyond)
- Breakfast sausages (impossible, beyond)
- Chicken nuggets/patties
- Mayo
A tier - you can tell it’s different but it’s just as good
- Queso dip (cashew based)
- Ground beef (impossible, beyond)
- Egg (just egg)
- Butter
- Milk
- Ice cream
B tier - you can tell it’s different and it’s a slight downgrade
- Deli cheese slices (some brands are C or F)
C tier - you can tell it’s different and it’s okay but a significant downgrade
- Cream cheese (most brands)
- Pizza
F tier - you can tell it’s different and it’s not good
- Beef jerky
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I am not a vegan but I like almond milk/ oat milk to be better than dairy milk. I find that dairy milk has a weird smell in the US that I am not accustomed to. Also it weirds me out that dairy milk from the grocery stores takes weeks to spoil.
Same, I preferred plant milk to real milk for a few years before I went vegan.
Also it weirds me out that dairy milk from the grocery stores takes weeks to spoil.
Say what? I open a new quarter gallon of milk for my coffee and it expires after like two days in the fridge
Which is good! It is supposed to spoil in 2 or 3 days! Are you in CA?
As a non vegan who just likes all foods I’m interested to see other people’s takes on stuff so I can go check the out.
Imitation chicken patties and nuggets are fantastic
Updated the list! My girlfriend has celiac’s disease and those usually aren’t gluten free so I don’t have them often
Hey its me the Matrix guy, please message me: @du:nitro.chat my old server was compromised
Idk what kind it is but I used to get some jerky from loving hut and it was extremely good. You could tell it was different, but it was still amazing, like better than most beef jerky. When I was in college my non vegan friends loved it too, if I left it out I might not get very much 😆
I believe it! I had two types and they were god awful, but I’d be willing to give it another shot
Immitation burgers have gotten so good, even though I am not a vegan, I prefer them now over real burgers. Not necessarily because I feel they perfectly substitute a meat patty in taste and texture, but just because they taste so dang good.
EDIT: Vegan cream cheese is another one. It doesn’t taste the same, but I really like and prefer it.
That’s funny about cream cheese, I have mostly heard complaints about vegan cream cheese. Maybe I haven’t had the right brand yet but of the three types I tried I wasn’t a big fan.
I like the Violife brand.
The tofutti one is abhorrent, but I only tried it as a one to one replace for cream cheese on bagels with lox.
It might work for applications where you mix it with other things.
I’m vegan for three years and vegetarian for around six years. Some time ago I bought a pack of fake chicken gyros and to me it tasted so close to real chicken that I somehow felt disgusted by it and couldn’t eat it. Before, I always liked chicken and also other animal products. But somehow I got not only used to resist the temptation but somehow conditioned myself into completely changing my preferences. I still buy fake grated cheese quite often but in terms of meat alternatives I prefer patties, sausages, falafel and stuff that taste nothing like the original.
So if I compare my personal ranking to yours, my top tier is probably “A” and your “S” in many cases would be just as bad as “F”.
There’s a vegan jerky made by the Grain Cafe which is like a vegan mexican Denny’s and the way the soy protein is pressed it comes out textured like strips of beef but it’s cut into usable sections that you can peel apart either in strips or layers, and more importantly it’s flavored better than beef jerky too. Corporate vegan jerky is just above trash in my book.
If y’all got any recommendations on brands, I wanna make a vegan buffalo chicken dip this weekend for a Superbowl/Valentines themed party and I’d love suggestions on which vegan cream cheeses, cheddar cheese and sour creams would work well.
Big disagree about burgers and jerky.
Those beyond/impossible meats are fine I guess, but they’re not good. Weird taste, long lingering aftertaste. Solid C+ in my opinion.
While I prefer vegan jerky actually. That super tough peppery gluten jerky (pleather brand is what I’ve been getting) is great, as are the softer soy or mushroom jerkies. They are different, so no shade if you don’t like them, but there’s no tier for ‘you can tell the difference, and they taste better’.
Nuggets idk much about, as I’m not really a fan. Same with mayo.
Milk is another one where oat milk is better tasting than dairy milk imo.
agree about cheese generally. I can’t have nuts, so I’ve never had cashew queso, but that queso you can make with potatoes and carrots, while sounding weird, is actually pretty great. Maybe A- tier imo.
I think S tier should have been “tastes better than imitation” and I would put all plant milks there. Unfortunately yoghurt doesn’t deserve such distinction, except perhaps Alpro.
Not a vegan, but I eat vegetarian meals sometimes. The only imitation food I was ever impressed by was the impossible burger.
