Greetings, vegan Earthlings!
It’s been a while since I’ve done a vegan food review post and that is mostly due to the fact that there aren’t many new vegan food products right now. Luckily for us vegans in Romania, the options have not reduced as I’ve heard they have elsewhere, but new items are few and far between.
But the first review is a new-to-me product that’s actually been sitting in the aisles of Lidl for years. And the other is vegan cheese.
Vegan Raw Bars
For years I’ve avoided these raw bars or energy bars except when hiking because they tend to be overly sweet and high in calories. But a few years ago I hiked Caraiman Peak and my husband bought a few of them. I didn’t think I would end up eating them unless I got super hungry but I did get super hungry and when I ate half the bar, it gave me so much energy that a convert was born.
The instant energy was amazing but the fact that it lasted and didn’t give me that dreaded sugar crash is what really sold me on these bars.
So a month or two ago I felt like I was hitting a workout slump that was mostly due to the dreary weather outside. It was hard to get started and I felt like I wasn’t getting as much as I could from my workouts. So I grabbed one of the vegan bars from Alesto and I ate half of it about 15 minutes before my workout.
Holy workout Batman, y’all!!!! It gave me so much energy and it never waned throughout an hour-long session. Don’t get me wrong, I was tired but it was from working out and that’s all right by me.
The cocoa nibs and chia & coconut are my favorite in terms of taste. The Goji berry was okay but I didn’t enjoy eating it. The cherry flavor was tasty but too sweet. The other was mango and since I’m not a fan of mangoes I didn’t even both with it.
Overall I like these bars and I would recommend them to anyone who needs a quick pick me up without the inevitable crash.
Vegan Feta
I know what you’re thinking, not another vegan cheese. I felt the same way but since there’s only two types of vegan cheese that I seem to like, Naturli Goudah and vegan Feta cheese, I figured I’d give this brand a try.
Perfetta was just sitting there in Lidl, waiting for me to pick it up and check it out, which I did. But the real reason I bought it? Compared to other vegan Feta cheese brands, it’s much more calorie friendly. At just 189 calories per 100 grams compared to the average of 267 calories per 100 grams I figured I had to check it out.
The taste and texture was decidedly un-Feta-like. It was soft and creamy, more like a soft cheese than feta, probably because it was made with almonds rather than coconuts. The flavor was spot on though and it was shred-able which was nice to add to Mamaliga (Romanian polenta), but otherwise not all that practical.
Taste-wise, I enjoyed it. Calorie-wise, I loved it. But honestly it was middle of the road vegan feta cheese.
You will love this if you are a cheese loving vegan. If you can take cheese or leave it, you’ll probably leave this one.
The Spicy Spatula 
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