Tofutti's Ipsy-Pipsy bars

[vegankittykat]

I found these at a health food store (that's really far from my house, of course) this past weekend....I had never heard of them before. The label describes them as "crispy wafers and hazelnut cream in Better than Milk Chocolate". They're pretty good....a nice change of pace from the dark chocolate candy from HFS's (some of which are pretty nasty and bitter IMO). This is the ingredients list from their website:

Ipsy-Pipsy Candy Bar: Sugar, chocolate (cocoa butter, cocoa powder), hazelnuts, almonds, soy protein, tofu, unbleached wheat flour, emulsifier, rapeseed lecithin, vegetable oil, salt. (on the actual label is says emulsifier: rapeseed lecithin, so the comma on the website must be a typo)

[carnelian]

Never heard of these. Cute name, though! I rarely eat candy these days (Luna Bars are my "candy bar"), except for some yummy vegan dark chocolate from Cuba I'm working on that a friend (trying to get her to join us here) I work with brought back from her recent trip. Since it appears that these are vegan, I may have to indulge at least once so I can satisfy my curiosity. Thanks!

[scareyvegan]

theyre yummy, but beyond expensive

[CharityAJO]

They're good on occasion. But like tofutti cream cheese - they fall short of their dairy counterparts. A nice change of pace from dark chocolate, but sadly, not as good as I remember milk chocolate being.

[Second_Chance]

I love these things. I occasionally have them... they're not super expensive up here.. but then again, I only buy a few of them when they're on sale!

[Tommy Gun]

I love tofutti, but I haven't had those. I don't think I've even seen them in stores. Then again, there are tons of things on the tofutti website that I've never seen...like...pizza? I love the "totally fudge" pops, but TJs doesn't seem to have them anymore. Maybe they just ran out the last few times I was there.

[vegankittykat]

If you ever do find the pizza, I highly recommend it. It's really good. It's not too easy to find by me, but when I do see it I always get it :lick:.

[SallyK]

Mmmm, the fudge pops are so yummy!

So if I were to look for these at Whole Foods, would they be with the chocolate bars?

[scareyvegan]

whole foods doesnt carry many tofutti products because they feel that while its unhealthy to eat hydrogenated oils, its okay to eat free-range dead animals full of free radicals

try a local natural food store, and if they dont carry it, ask them to special order it for you... chances are, there is a distributor
you can also call/email tofutti asking them for their list of local distributors

[vegankittykat]

whole foods doesnt carry many tofutti products because they feel that while its unhealthy to eat hydrogenated oils, its okay to eat free-range dead animals full of free radicals


:grr: This really annoys me about them. If I have the time I prefer to travel to the HFS about an hour from me that doesn't sell meat, but unfortunately that's not always feasible. The Whole Foods by me doesn't carry any Toffuti products at all. I asked them to start carrying it now that they're removing the trans fats.

[lijahbaby]

I heard too that they were taking out the hydrogenated oils.I don't know how soon it is supposed to happen but the guy I talked to at Whole Foods said they planned on carrying their products when they did.Which would be good because I love the pizza!

[brownieB26]

WF doesn't carry stuff that has trans fats? Is that why they stopped carrying my favorite chicken-burger-type-thing?!?! I don't know, they seem to sell a lot of salad dressings, some with enough fat in 2 or 3 tbsp to take up a day's servings. I don't think one tofutti cutie is gonna kill anyone. And tofutti makes pizza?! Maybe I ought to venture into Trader Joes one day this week. I've heard they are a lot cheaper than whole foods but last time I was there it was so dingy and weird...

oh! and getting back to the original topic, agave nectar.....that stuff is SO good. If you've ever had Amy's veggie pizza, the one with the brown sauce and artichokes, etc. you can definately taste the agave. my mouth is watering just thinking about it (eyes amy's roasted veggie pizza sitting in freezer...mmmmm)

[MollyGoat]

Uh...they sell salad dressings with lots of fat, in the form of olive or canolo oil. They carry Tofutti ice cream and stuff anyway.

The fact that WF doesn't carry any products with hydrogenated oils is one of my favorite things about them. I love not having to worry about that disgusting stuff being in my foods. Not everyone agrees that meat is always bad for you, but we all know that trans fats are WAY bad. Why should they carry them?

[scareyvegan]

why should they carry them???

because they put out of business the local vegan friendly stores, and open up whole foods that do not carry vegan substitutes because they contain this or that

[MollyGoat]

I dunno, in Portland, vegan-friendly stores are flourishing like never before. The WF there doesn't seem to be causing trouble.

I don't consider Tofutti cheese to be vegan-friendly, because I don't think hydrogenated oil is friendly to vegans. They carry the substitutes that don't have those oils, such as the Vegan parmesan cheese. I think that WF's choice not to carry those products is a rare example of corporate responsibility.

The CEO is a vegan, anyway, so I don't think the corporation as a whole can really be accused of insensitivity to vegans.

On topic: have you guys tried the Tropical Source chocolate bars? I think those taste a lot like milk chocolate.

[kerouac]

Portland is a very veg friendly city. Not all of us live in a place where there is a multitude of HFS or even a WF. By not carrying vegan products like Tofutti or Amy's or other popular veg*n foods, it is making it harder for veg*n people to find any kind of food made for them. Like anything else, it is all subject to interpretation, some vegans eat hydrogenated oil, just like some vegans won't eat anything that says the food has been manufactured on machinery that may have dairy residue on it. All personal opinon. No hard-fast rules here.

Anyway.

Tropical Source is my favourite. I eat the Green Tea Chocolate like its going out of style. I'm not a fan or dark chocolate, so Tropical Source is great :)

[scareyvegan]

can you verify that the CEO of whole foods is vegan?

[MollyGoat]

I actually live in Denver right now, and I go to school in rural Vermont, so believe me, I know what it's like to live in an un-vegan-friendly place. My point in saying that about Portland was that I don't think WFM is shutting down small, vegan-friendly stores. I think the niche is pretty big right now for health and specialty food items.

I'll do a little snooping on the CEO....

[scareyvegan]

in new orleans we had one NFS called all natural and 1 whole foods which was pretty far away from all natural

whole foods opened a new location directly across the street from all natural with a much larger selection and cheaper prices, closing them down
which sucks because all natural was actually vegan friendly

[annabanana]

Wild Oats recently removed all hydrogenated oils too, which means no more tofutti cuties, but it does mean more soy delicious products :lick:

[MollyGoat]

Tofutti cuties! What do you mean--they took the hydrogenated oils out of them, I thought!

[MollyGoat]

http://www.upc-online.org/ducks/102103wholefoods.htm

John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, is a vegan. It's in there and a million other places if you google it...