Bio Cheese has landed in Australia!

Have you heard exuberant cries of excitement and delight echoing across the country? It's probably because Coles has recently begun stocking Bio Cheese, previously very hard to get in Australia. So there is now finally a vegan cheese available in a major supermarket! Yay Coles!

But what does it taste like? Well, apparently very very good. The internet was going crazy about it, so I decided I had better get into it and see what all the fuss was about. At $9.50 for 250g, it's not cheap, but vegan cheese never is, is it? So I forked out and excitedly unwrapped it and took a bite of a slice. Now as I have mentioned before, I have been burned by vegan cheese before, so I cautiously chewed my mouthful and carefully analysed the flavour and texture, but I'll be damned, it is very nice! The flavour and texture are both very reminiscent of Edam or Swiss cheese, and it is very hard to stop at just one slice. I have eaten it by itself, and on Arnott's Jatz biscuits, and both are delicious.

Next, the toughest test; the melt test. To be able to best analyse the melt texture and flavour, I made some simple cheese on toast (and very handily, 3 slices of Bio Cheese are the exact perfect fit for a slice of bread!). The cheese bubbled well under the grill and melted very well I think, compared to other vegan cheeses. Compared to dairy cheese, Bio Cheese melts like processed cheese slices, with a skin on the top and creamy melted cheese within. My only issue with this was that the skin got stuck on my teeth. Do not eat in public. The melted cheese within was very nice though, very creamy. It didn't stretch but hey, you can't have it all!

I think this cheese is great, definitely the closest I've ever tasted to dairy cheese. I think that it would be great in a toasted sandwich, as you wouldn't get the processed cheese skin issue, and I really want to experiment with putting it in pastas, soups, and seeing how it reacts when grated and spread on a pizza. Whie I still have a soft spot for Sheese on Jatz biscuits, I think that Bio Cheese is a definite winner, and very readily available! Yay! A sure sign that the vegan market is growing and becoming more influential, and a perfect example of the cycle of consume and demand. Companies only provide what you ask for with your money, if you ask for ethical foods and practices, that's what you'll get. So much for the "But you're only one person" argument, we're all only one person, and together we are billions of people.

Happy eating! :)