Vegetarian trying to switch to vegan

[Milakala]

1) Is there anything that you might not think about that I should be aware of on the ingredients lists of food to avoid non-vegan foods?

2) Is rice or almond milk sweeter/no after taste when compared to soy milk?

3) Does vegan ice cream and cheese taste anything like regular?

Giving up dairy should be simple, it makes me sick anyway to eat it. Just have to find different guilty pleasures for when I have a sweet tooth!

[Korn]

1) You'll probably find some ingredients here and there that you didn't know were animal based, but don't let that stop you from trying to go vegan! There's plenty of material on internet about animal ingredients - including on this forum.... please have a look!

2) Personally I don't know - I've haven't been drinking plant 'milks' since I was a child. Just give it a try, or wait for someone else to chime in. Some people mix eg. rice and soy milk if they want the same texture as cow juice.

3) Cheese? Opinions vary. Check out our Vegan Cheese-section, or just give it a try!
There's lots of good vegan ice cream out there.

In general, it's easier to copy the taste of animal products by using plants than to copy the taste of eg. an orange or carrot by using animal products (I guess? )... but trying new foodstuff is fun and enjoyable. Just imagine that you're on holiday and need to try out things you haven't tasted before.

There are many areas in the world with strong, plant based food traditions, and most likely, you'll be more interested in food that doesn't try to copy animal products than emulation of animal based food after a while - but many people ask these questions, and we have many of threads about these topics already. We also have literally thousands of posts with ideas for lunch, breakfast, bread spreads and what not. Good luck!

[Korn]

I don't know if you have checked our Cheese subforum yet, with more than 1600 posts about non-dairy cheese alternatives, but inspired by your question, I started a new thread here - which will end up in as a poll about our members' favorite vegan cheese products.

[behindblueeyes]

1. casein, gelatin, rennet...if you're not sure just look it up. I didn't know what carageenan was (it comes from seaweed or something)

2. I think so. Almond milk is my favorite, doesn't have any after taste.

3. Ice cream-yes, cheese-no. I'm not a big fan of vegan cheeses. They're okay sometimes in a recipe, but never just plain. But that's my opinion, you'll have to try them.

So Delicious makes some 'dairy' products with coconut milk (yogurt, ice cream). I think they taste better than the soy ones, but those are good too.