Saw this Trader Joe’s Hawaiian-inspired mochi cake mix the other day … it’s Gluten-Free and 99% Vegan. Looks delicious! I love cake mixes, and I would make it with Just Egg. Could use vegan butter or could try a lower-saturated-fat alternative like Kite Hill plain unsweetened vegan protein yogurt.
The only non-vegan ingredient is sodium caseinate (a milk derivative). No need to avoid sodium caseinate for the sake of dairy cows. Common sense will tell you that the dairy industry won’t decide to harm one less cow, even if everyone in the world strictly refused to buy cake mixes with sodium caseinate as an ingredient.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt that sodium caseinate is a big enough money-maker for the dairy industry to figure into their decisions about how many dairy cows to raise and kill in future years.
Now, if the sales of dairy-based milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter were to drop by 90%, do you think the dairy industry would start raising and killing fewer dairy cows? Absolutely. At least that’s what I believe would happen. But if the market drops out for sodium caseinate? I don’t think so. Again, correct me if I’m wrong; I haven’t looked up the share of profits that sodium caseinate comprises for the dairy industry. So, if you’ve got the information, please do share.
I’m sure there are vegans out there who will bemoan, “The Trader Joe’s Hawaiian-inspired mochi cake mix looks good, but it’s not vegan SO I CAN’T HAVE IT!!!! 😭 Why did they have to put sodium caseinate in there?”
My question is … if you are “vegan for the animals,” why do you care about something as inconsequential for dairy cows as sodium caseinate?
Just my opinion. Vegans, y’all look foolish and frivolous as heck when you focus on sodium caseinate while the people all around you are chowing down on dairy-based milk, yogurt, butter, and cheese as a large part of their typical meals, snacks or baked goods.
That being said, the Trader Joe’s Hawaiian-inspired mochi cake mix features coconut milk powder which is surely delicious but also high in saturated fat. Just in the cake mix (before adding butter and eggs), it’s 3.5 grams saturated fat per serving.
That’s why I like the idea of using a low-saturated-fat sub like Kite Hill plain unsweetened vegan protein yogurt for the butter (so we aren’t adding even more saturated fat with the butter). Whether you use dairy-based butter or vegan butter, it’s typically going to be high in saturated fat.
Following recent research (which could be proven wrong, we are always learning more) saturated fat is something to watch out for, from a nutritional standpoint, vegan or not. Since the cake mix already has quite a bit of saturated fat, I’d look into subbing at least part of the vegan or dairy-based butter for something else.
Speaking of vegan fools … how about the ones that say, “I don’t care about the nutritional content of vegan products. I’m doing this for the animals!” Right … but did you suddenly stop caring about your own health just because you are trying to help animals? Doesn’t make much sense.
Vegans, here’s a big “DUH” for ya. If you think it’s OK not to care about people’s health, no wonder people aren’t so friendly toward you. Vegans like to say it’s other people and their “cognitive dissonance.” Sorry folks :.. if you’re saying you don’t care about the nutrition of the food you eat … It’s not them, it’s YOU.
Now to be clear, I don’t write this blog for the less than 2% of people worldwide who are willing to be strictly vegan. I write this for the rest of the people who have a feeling that a lot of what the vegans say is inaccurate information or just plain foolish advice.
Vegans like to put themselves on a pedestal as they believe their strict adherence to never consuming any animal products shows that they are COMMITTED and care about animals more than anyone else.
Meanwhile … everyone else can see that the vegans aren’t helping any animals by refusing to eat extra food that will otherwise be thrown out or avoiding sodium caseinate in a cake mix. What’s more, everyone else can see that IT IS IMPORTANT (duh) to know the nutritional content of food, vegan or not.
In my opinion, out in the famous interwebs … what we DON’T HAVE ENOUGH OF, is people who are proponents of folks helping animals by following a vegan and/or animal-friendly, veganish diet, to the best of a person’s ability (or whatever is reasonable, as decided by that person, for their situation), while also calling vegans, vegetarians and others out on their bull 💩.
That’s why this is an important part of what I do here. I don’t do it for the benefit of people who continue with rhetoric that doesn’t make sense. Example: “I don’t care about nutrition because I’m vegan for the animals.” I do it for the benefit of others who are seeing how ridiculous it is and who need some validation that yes, we are all seeing the same thing. 👍
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