Vegan products I recommend

None of them contain lentils

People sometimes ask me what I eat instead of meat and dairy. So here is a list of some of my favourite vegan foods (stealing the format of Sam Bowman’s annual list of recommended products). Disclaimer: I am not a food expert! Please put all your better ideas in the comments.

Bold Bean Queen Chickpeas - £4 a jar

These are genuinely delicious – a world away from tinned chickpeas, and good enough to eat straight from the jar. Radio 4’s Food Programme actually did two shows on why beans taste better from a jar than from a can. Also if you want a recipe to use aquafaba (chickpea water, from a jar or a tin), I heartily recommend these amaretti biscuits.

La Vie ‘bacon’ - £3.50 a pack

Personally, I don’t miss bacon, but I tried these because of curiosity and incessant advertising. They smell like bacon, go crispy like bacon and taste good enough to remind me of the US Office episode in which Michael tries to make bacon in bed but steps in his George Foreman grill.

Beyond Burgers - £4.50 for two

Swapping beef burgers for plant burgers is really a no-brainer now, because Beyond Burgers (and Impossible Burgers in the US) are almost indistinguishable from beef and have a fraction of the environmental impact.

If you’re worried about the health effects, there was a US study where volunteers alternated between eating Beyond Meat products twice a day and eating organic meat products twice a day (for eight weeks, in both cases). The ones on Beyond Meat products saw health benefits and no health drawbacks. (The study was funded by Beyond, but done by reputable scientists at Stanford.)

Honestly Tasty Bree and Shamembert - £7-8 a pack

Vegan cheeses are mainly horrible, especially if coconut oil is their biggest ingredient. Of the many that I have tried, these are the only ones that I have given as a present. They are cashew-based and really good, with no weird aftertaste. They are expensive, but if you’re after an occasional hit of cheese-like flavour and texture, look no further. Stockists here.

Oat milk - about £2

It’s worth trying all the different non-dairy milks to find out which one you like best. But in my view, oat milk is by far the best option. Alpro’s doesn’t separate in the carton (so doesn’t require shaking). Also Oatly make a very decent custard:

Mussels - £1.69 a tin

My opinion is that farmed mussels can be part of a vegan diet, because there is no evidence that mussels feel pain and they are grown sustainably, mainly on ropes dangling from rafts off the north-east coast of Spain. These ones are cheap and tasty and sometimes in stock at Waitrose.

Hellmann’s Vegan Mayo - £1.80 a jar

This tastes like egg mayonnaise, which is quite funny given that Unilever, which makes Hellmann’s, once sued a start-up for calling vegan mayonnaise ‘mayonnaise’.

Higgidy Spinach & Tomato Quiche - £4.50 ish

Properly melty.

Tideford Lentil and Spinach Dhal - £3.25

OK, this one does contain lentils. But it doesn’t contain weird processed ingredients.

There are obviously a million other foods that are vegan, including baked beans, Marmite and watermelon (but oddly not Quorn mince).

Eating less meat and dairy is far easier than you imagine, but it does involve a transition period of finding which flavours you can reply and how. My advice to anyone trying to eat less animal products is: 1) buy a plant-based cookbook (like the ones by Meera Sodha, Rukmini Iyer or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall); and 2) to sign up to a weekly veg box so you have a variety of vegetables.