Six Food Intolerance Living

Sorry about yesterday. Yes, I know it was A LOT of information. I always like to hear the stories of how people come to their diet (whether choosing to be vegan, vegetarian, soy free, etc) and therefore felt like I should share my story, lest I be accused of asking without telling!

Today's post will be shorter ... maybe. More interesting? Definitely! I have come to share with you the KINGS of all dairy AND soy free products. Yes, if you are dairy and soy free and haven't heard of these products yet, you will want to kiss me once you taste it. Yes, really, you will! Just you wait and see ...

The guests of honor are ...

SCORE!

Get Out!

Shut Up!

For Real!

... right?


Anyway, the dairy free experts, Turtle Mountain, have recently released these beauties onto the market and I, for one, am seeing big things in their future.

I'll be honest, when I made this life change back in February, I was very surprised to see that nearly all dairy substitutes were made with soy. The only exception that I found was Rice Dream and Galaxy's Rice Cheese, but to a less-than-a-week GDSYWP-free person, this ice cream and cheese was NOT cutting it (and actually still doesn't at 6 months free). I truly applaud their efforts in offering something to us poor souls, but after 24 years of creamy, melty, flavorful dairy products, this stuff just plain sucked (sorry Rice Dream and Galaxy!).

Being of half-Thai decent and using a lot of coconut milk in various recipes, I asked myself (and complained to Hubby) why this couldn't be used to make dairy products. I mean, it was creamy and flavorful, and most importantly - dairy and soy free! (And actually, I had often thought of using it as a substitute for milk in my previously-dairy-filled-life recipes, but I just never got around to it ... ya know how that goes) And actually, if I had only pursued those thoughts, bought a food making business and knew how to make dairy products, well, then I could be the one reaping all these benefits right now ...

okay, that's a whole different dream ...

So, um, yeah, my current dream is rolling around in this beautifully creamy stuff for the rest of my life! :D


The Coconut Milk Ice Cream comes in 6 flavors: Vanilla Bean, Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip (contains soy lecithin), Cookie Dough (soy lecithin) and Coconut.
Chocolate was creamy, with a slight hint of coconut while on the tongue, but definitely finishes with a pleasant, rich chocolate flavor.
The Vanilla Bean flavor was the complete opposite of the Chocolate flavor. Vanilla started with a crisp, bright vanilla flavor on your tongue that morphed into, and finished with, coconut. My coconut-disliking Hubby did not like this flavor. He also thought the Vanilla Beans were too strong, though I liked that. I really loved the initial crisp, strong vanilla flavor, but be warned that it doesn't last long before morphing into coconut.
Mint Chocolate Chip is definitely minty, maybe even is a bit too crisp, but doesn't taste like coconut at all. The only thing that disappointed me is that the chocolate is not in flakes like I prefer. It's sort of flaky, but is in a ribbon swirled around throughout the mint ice cream. This flavor is really good, but I still miss my all time favorite ice cream ever - Blue Bell Mint Chocolate Chip. Maybe that's why I'm so critical of mint chip flavored ice cream.
Cookie Dough ... oh. my. I can't tell you just how THRILLED I was when I found out that the cookie dough is gluten free. Wow! Gluten, dairy and soy free ... AND delicious! It seriously is super good. Probably my favorite of the six, which is saying a lot considering that Iwas never a big fan of this flavor prior to going GDSYWP-free. The ice cream itself is either cookie dough flavored or a very, very mild vanilla (not like their sharp vanilla bean) and the cookie dough is in balls - whichout chocolate chips. The chocolate is in flakes throughout the ice cream, separate from the dough. I think that's why I like it so much. Another bonus, the cookie dough isn't super hard, which is part of why I never liked it before. Way to go Turtle Mountain - you hit this one on the nose!
Finally, the Coconut flavor was also creamy, rich and had tiny pieces of coconut floating around in it. Can you just imagine - a dairy and soy free ice cream that is rich AND creamy? Oh, I think I'm in love!

***Edited to add: They've now released 3 new flavors - Mocha Almond Fudge, Passionate Mango and Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl.
Mocha Almond Fudge is my new favorite! It's delish! Mocha ice cream with bits of toasted almonds and plenty - but not too much - of fudgy goodness!
Passionate Mango - I tried this again, but didn't expect to like it since I didn't like the yogurt. I didn't like it. I will put it in smoothies though. I'm just not a fan of passion fruit. I love mango, but all I can taste here is the passion fruit.


The Coconut Milk Yogurt also comes in 6 flavors: Plain, Vanilla, Blueberry, Passionate Mango, Strawberry Banana and Raspberry.
The Passionate Mango, to me, was gross. But then again, I don't care for passion fruit and that was all I could taste while eating this. I LOVE coconut and I LOVE mango, so I thought I would be able to work past the passion fruit, but I couldn't. If you do like passion fruit, however, maybe this would be good.
The Vanilla was DIVINE! It was smooth and creamy and didn't taste like coconut at all - not even a hint. I thought this, and my coconut-hating husband thought so, too! I can see myself using this one a lot, just for eating, and in my previous-dairy-filled-life recipes involving vanilla yogurt. SCORE!
The Raspberry was interesting. It was definitely tangy like raspberries, but I don't think it tasted quite like raspberries, but it didn't taste quite like coconut, either. I guess the melding of the two created this whole other flavor. It also has a medicinal after-taste. It kind of reminds me of flavored cough syrup that tries to cover the medicine taste with a fruity flavor that just doesn't quite cut it. With that said though, the flavor isn't AS bad as that. It's just not anything that I recognized easily. I think I'm going to have to give it another try to be sure.
The Strawberry Banana flavor to me was just o-k. I didn't love it, didn't hate it. It barely tasted of bananas or coconut, did have a more prominent strawberry flavor, but still nothing really went *pow* in my mouth.
I really liked the Blueberry flavor. It definitely tasted like blueberry, but the coconut flavor took the tarty edge off of them. I think it had a bit of a coconut aftertaste, but not much in my coconut loving opinion. (sorry, coconut-disliking Hubby was not around to taste).
The Plain, well, it tasted plain! JUST like regular 'ol plain yogurt. Tart yet creamy. I haven't eaten it by itself much, but have used it frequently in recipes calling for plain yogurt and it works just beautifully!

Okay, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. If you've had the pleasure of trying any of these, please leave me a message letting me know what you think! Are you as excited about this stuff as I am?