No Harm, No Fowl

Transition Foods, Dairy and Egg Substitutes and Meat Replacements

Some new vegans, and some longtime vegans as well, find the vegan diet more enjoyable if they include foods with flavors and textures that are similar to meat and dairy products. These days you can find a vegan replacement for just about everything, from hamburger to shrimp to ice cream. Not all of them are healthy foods, but they can help ease the transition to a vegan diet and reduce cravings.

Vegan Substitutes for Dairy Products and Meat

Cashew Cheese

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Restaurants

Buddhist Chinese restaurants generally have mock meat dishes. In recent years, Thai vegan restaurants specializing in fake meat meals have been cropping up all over the place as well. Vegan soul food restaurants are starting to gain in popularity. See if there is one in your area. At a vegan soul food restaurant, you can find all the deep-fried fake meat you could ever want.

Recently, vegan pizza has been taking the U.S. by storm. Whole Foods and zpizza now serve vegan pizzas.

Butter Alternatives

Willow Run margarine

If you really must have the most buttery-tasting alternative to dairy butter, try Willow Run soy margarine. It's not as healthful as the other options but it has no trans fats and it's not harmful unless you are allergic to soy.

Olive Oil and Sea Salt

For toast, do what many Europeans do and eat it with olive oil and sea salt instead of butter.

Flax Seed Oil

Serve your vegetables with flax seed oil instead of butter. But only drizzle it over your cooked vegetables. The fatty acids in the oil become unstable at high temperatures, so you should never cook with flax oil.

Sesame Oil or Corn Oil for Baking

Light sesame oil or corn oil can be used in place of butter in baking. If you use sesame oil, make sure to get the untoasted sesame oil, not the toasted oil which has a strong flavor and is better suited to savory dishes. If you use corn oil, make sure it is organic and GMO-free. Corn is very often genetically modified and also a frequently pesticide-laden crop. Or skip the oil altogether and just use applesauce to moisten your baked goods.

Mashed Avocado

Mashed avocado is a great spread for bread. Although its flavor is different, its texture is rich and creamy. It is sometimes used in baking as well.

Onion Butter

If you've never tried onion butter, you won't believe how sweet and creamy it is. Onion butter is made by slowly cooking onions for 6-8 hours. They shrink down into a very soft and spreadable vegetable butter. It's great on toast, crusty bread or vegetables.

Carrot Butter, Squash Butter and Carrot Cashew Butter
Carrot butter, ginger squash butter, and carrot cashew butter go well with any type of bread or toast, but they go especially well with corn bread.

Fruit Butter

Fruit butters like pear and apple butter make great thick spreads for pancakes and waffles.

Coconut Oil

Coconut oil tastes nothing like butter, but it makes a great oil for baked goods and sauteeing foods. In the Ayurvedic system of medicine, coconut oil is recommended in place of ghee for vegans.

High Temperature Frying

One of the advantages of using butter for cooking is that it has a high smoking point because of its high saturated fat content. Coconut oil is one of the few vegetable sources of saturated fats so it's excellent for high temperature sauteeing and frying. If you want a more neutral flavor, grapeseed oil or safflower oils are also good choices.

Milk Alternatives

Vegan milks can be made from just about any seed, nut, or grain, and some beans as well. Here are some of the different types of milk substitutes available. Many can easily be made at home.

Soy milk
Soy and rice milk blend
Rice milk
Hemp milk
Almond milk
Oat milk
Coconut milk
Amasake (thick fermented sweet rice drink)

Coconut milk is so rich that it can be used in place of cream in desserts and in thick, creamy sauces. See the Recipes page for a chana masala (chickpea curry) recipe that uses coconut milk instead of cream.

Note:
Because of its high content of essential fatty acids which can become unstable easily, it is best not to heat hemp milk.

Egg Replacers

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