Reviews: GF cereal, flax milk, vegan protein

News & Notes

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Are you familiar with the dynamic Alisa Fleming, author of the website and guide/cookbook Go Dairy Free? I’m sure you are! Alisa is a huge asset to not only the dairy-free community, but to vegans and folks with food allergies everywhere.

In addition to being the queen of the dairy-free blogosphere, Alisa works with Attune Foods, the maker of several allergen-free brands of products like cereals, graham crackers, and chocolate bars. In her infinite awesomeness, Alisa recently sent me a couple boxes of Erewhon gluten-free cereals to try, which was a wonderful thing to receive when I was first going officially-GF recently. She let me choose any two boxes I wanted, so I picked the salt-free Crispy Brown Rice and good ol’ Corn Flakes.

Both cereals were free of gluten AND sugar (the Crispy Brown Rice has less than 1g per serving), which is great for my current low-glycemic eating regimen.

Don’t you just love short ingredient lists?

Though I originally had lofty plans of using these cereals in a recipe, I ended up just eating them the old-fashioned way, with flax milk and stevia to taste.

Hold the phone! What’s that, you say? Flax milk? Yes!

Good Karma recently sent me a trio of their brand new flax milks to try. They’re 100% vegan and free of gluten and soy as well.

Let me tell you, I would never have guessed that these flax milks are as mild-flavored, subtly sweet, and perfectly creamy as they are. Plus they’re filled with heart- and brain-healthy omega-3 fats! On top of all that, the calorie counts on these things are super-low—60 cals/cup for the Vanilla and Original and – get this – 25 cals/cup for the Unsweetened. I was blown away! I can’t wait till these show up in my local Whole Foods.

Ok, so we’ve had our carbs and our fats today, but what about protein?
Enter: Plant Fusion protein powders.

Scott from Plant Fusion sent me sample packets of their Chocolate and Chocolate Raspberry protein powders to try, as well as 1-lb tubs of their Vanilla Bean and Unflavored varieties. These hypoallergenic powders contain no gluten or animal products and are fortified with a full complement of amino acids.

I’ve got very high standards when it comes to plant-based protein supplementation, so I was a little skeptical, but these Plant Fusion powders really impressed me. They dissolved beautifully – and tasted excellent – in any liquid, even plain water, though they were especially tasty in smoothies (such as, ahem, the ones in Practically Raw ). The Vanilla Bean flavor in particular has a heavenly scent that you’d have to experience to believe!