If you don’t own an ice-cream maker, then you’re likely going to buy ice-cream brands. Cecily’s (Cornwall) is a brand of dairy-free ice-cream created by a woman who used to commute from Brighton to London. People loved her ice-cream, so she moved back to her childhood home to offer the best iced treats in the land!
Avoid caffeine for pregnancy/nursing. Keep these ice-creams away from pets, due to unsafe ingredients (cocoa, nuts, salt, dried fruits). Read more on keeping people & pets safe in the kitchen.
Packed in a sugar-cane plastic alternative that can even be composted, this company sends out orders in biodegradable recycled denim insulation. No monkeys are used to harvest their sea-freighted coconuts. Flavours include:
- Vanilla & dark choc
- Mint choc chip
- Choc orange swirl
- Double caramel
- Pure chocolate
- Rum n raisin
- Creamy coconut
- Pure caramel
why switch to dairy-free ice cream?
As well as being kinder to animals, dairy-free ice-cream is also free from cholesterol and artisan brands made with more natural ingredients. Most major brands of dairy ice-cream are made with refined sugar, corn syrup and some contain palm oil and battery-farmed eggs. And most brands are packed in plastic tubs (whereas artisan brands tend to use cardboard or sugar-cane packaging).
Some brands of dairy ice-cream also use propylene glycol (antifreeze) and fake vanilla extra (can be from castoreum – extracted from beavers, used in some perfumes). Others use glycerine that is sold from the soap industry to act as a humectant (why commercial soap dries your skin out). The best-selling brands (even if advertised as ‘luxury ice-cream) are simple imxes of reconstituted skimmed milk (presumably not free-range), refined sugar, glucose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, ‘exhausted vanilla bean pieces’ (flavour has been extracted) and mono/diglycerides of fatty acids.
As American food campaigner Michael Pollan writes ‘avoid any food that your great-great-great grandmother would not understand the ingredients! The main brands are also owned by big multi-national brands that use palm oil and test on animals for other products. Good food should be about supporting local indie brands, not buying absolutely everything you eat from one global multi-national.
other good brands of vegan ice cream
Mighty Ice Cream is a plant milk company that has started to make ice-cream that’s sold in Tesco. Choose from caramel or chocolate fudge flavours.
Jude’s Ice Cream offers oat-based flavours of vanilla bean and salted caramel (with cinder toffee pieces). Both are sold in Sainsbury’s.
Poco (Essex) is made in Leigh-on-Sea, voted the happiest place to live in England. The range is free from nuts, soy and gluten. Choose from Raspberry, Strawberry, Banana Caramel or Coffee.
Simply Ice Cream offers plant-based vanilla and strawberry ice-creams, plus sorbets (blackcurrant, lemon, raspberry, mango). Fruit is from local farms where possible. Made in Kent with a coconut milk base.
Booja Booja (Norfolk) sells luxury ice-creams in cardboard tubs, sold in good health stores and farm shops. Made with buttery cashew nuts, other ingredients include sea salt, real vanilla extract and coconut syrup to sweeten. The range includes vanilla, chocolate salted caramel and caramel pecan brownie.
the world’s first cauliflower ice cream!
Here are England, Naturally – we like to profile inspirational companies and ideas from over the border, if nothing like it exists here. EatKinda (New Zealand) has done the impossible, and created the world’s first ice-cream – made from cauliflowers! Cauliflower has a very mild flavour and lends itself well to making the base for desserts and cakes, so it was never going to be too long, before someone happened upon making ice-cream from the lowly vegetable.
Already sold out at tasting events, the brand was founded by a talented home cook, who whilst experimenting with a vegan cheesecake recipe, accidentally turned into a good ice-cream that had rave reviews. She pitched the ‘aha’ moment to a local startup, and paired up with a student of food technology, and the brand was born. And unlike many other vegan ice-cream ingredients (like soy), nobody but nobody surely can have an issue about cauliflowers? They grow absolutely everywhere, are cheap and good for you!
It’s sold in 3 flavours:
- Strawberry swirl
- Mint choc biccie
- Chocolate swirl