There was very little new in our yogurt and dessert tasting and the results were fairly predictable - better marks for the sheep and goat yogurts than the soya ones, with the old favourites (the Alpro desserts) coming out at the top of the table.

The only surprise, maybe, was the two soya custards, the Alpro and the Sainsbury’s, which everyone thought were delicious - as indeed they were - although still not to be compared with a home-made egg custard...

Probiotic enthusiasts will notice that a number of the yogurts now list the live cultures that they contain, although the question remains as to whether the live cultures in the yogurt will make it through the hostile environment of the average human stomach to benefit the gut flora as they are intended to.

The one ‘new’ dessert that was sent to us was the B’Nice rice milk ‘ice cream’ below which we did not feel fitted the dessert criteria - but was so delicious that we wrote about it anyway!

Dessert manufacturers are listed on the right, the table is to be found overleaf. Readers will notice that we have added another column to the table - a percentage sugars. This is to help the growing number of people who are diabetic, pre-diabetic or anxious to watch their sugar intake for other reasons.

The percentage is taken from the nutritional table on each product (where there is no nutritional table we have put a question mark) which lists the percentage of total carbohydrates that are accounted for by sugars. This gives a far more accurate picture of the sugar content as it includes fructose, corn syrup, honeys and all the various other sweeteners that are not classed as ‘sugar’ and can therefore often be slipped into a product without apparently raising its ‘sugar’ content.

B’Nice rice milk ‘ice cream’

The one that got away from our ice cream tasting in May was B’Nice Non-Dairy Rice Cream - in vanilla, strawberry and chocolate flavours.
B’Nice is made in Belgium from rice milk and rice powder, sugar and fructose, coconut oil, locust bean, guar gum, carrageenan, glycerides of fatty acids and madagascar vanilla, strawberry purée or Belgian chocolate - so it is dairy free, gluten free and egg free. And it tastes delicious - really smooth and creamy.

The flavours are good too - a nice clean vanilla, a strawberry which does taste of strawberry and a lovely, creamy chocolate which will not go down well with dark chocolate freaks but will be very popular with children.

B’Nice is available in 500g tubs, which cost around £2.50 from the importers, Beanies Health Foods (who also carry a number of other dairy and egg free products), via Goodness Direct, or from health food stores.

www.beanieshealthfoods.co.uk

Manufacturers:
Alpro UK Ltd
www.alprosoya.com
Delamere Dairy
www.delameredairy.co.uk
Sainsbury’s
www.sainsburys.co.uk
Sojade & Sojasun
www.sojasun.com
Soyage
www.granovita.co.uk
St Helen’s Farm
www.sthelensfarm.co.uk
Total
www.totalgreekyoghurt.com
Woodlands Park Dairy
www.woodlands-park.co.uk

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