Vegans - where do you get ingredients?

[mommybunny]

I'm trying to eat vegan more and more, though am a committed "flexitarian". I just bought a beautiful vegan cookbook called "Isa Does It" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and it has some gorgeous looking recipes in it. Thing is, a lot of them have some very unfamiliar ingredients to me that I've never seen in supermarkets before. It's possible I just haven't been looking hard enough, but where would you expect to find/buy (at a decent price!):

--seitan
--tofu
--nutritional yeast
--tempeh
--vital wheat gluten
--chickpea flour

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere - very grateful for any pointers!

I'm not vegan but I buy gram flour from the Asian supermarket and tofu in a variety of forms from the Oriental supermarket....be careful that you aren't accidentally buying tofu with other ingredients unless you are sure what the label says.

The others I don't buy regulally but I'd say a health food shop would be the first place I'd look.
Good hunting!

Gram (chickpea) flour and tofu should be available in larger supermarkets - Sainsburys and Morrisons certainly stock. Health food shops eg Holland and Barett should have the rest.

--seitan
Not sure, never liked the look of it but you can make your own

--tofu
Any major supermarket. Waitrose carries extra firm plain, extra firm smoked and both various flavours and also silken.

--nutritional yeast
Amazon or Holland and barrat

--tempeh
Never tried. It again you can make your own

--vital wheat gluten
Dunno

--chickpea flour
Called besan and in any major super market or Asian shop

I get my vital wheat gluten on Amazon or from vegan store. Then I make my own seitan.

Tempeh from the health food shop in town, the rest in the supermarket

To add- nutritional yeast is in the chemisty, health aisles of my Tesco, or other wise my little health food shop (or ocado has it too)

Chinese supermarkets for all kinds of tofu and mock meat.

--seitan

Make your own or buy mheat. Most prepackaged --seitan is tank, and it is really easy to make.

--tofu

Any supermarket.

--nutritional yeast

Amazon.

--tempeh

Online although IMO it is rank

--vital wheat gluten

Low carb superstore is the cheapest I think

--chickpea flour

Gram flour in the forrin muck section of the supermarket.

EBay is also good for small quantities of weird stuff.

Waitrose or ocado for everything

Goodnessdirect is a good website to use for the more unusual bits

Seitan is delicious. I buy it (and most of the other things you mention) from Infinity foods in Brighton; they deliver to us at wholesale prices as long as our group orders £250 of things. This is easy to do from their extensive catalogue, and you save a huge amount of money, (and lots of packaging if you buy in bulk).

We have a group of people who order together, so sometimes I only buy a couple of things, and sometimes I order many staples. Take a look at their catalogue- you will find everything: bulk bags of organic flours and beans, Ecover cleaning products, 1 kilo bags of fair trade organic coffee bean, sea vegetables, hundreds of delicious and healthy snack bars, chocolate, loo roll, fresh spices, gluten free products, bonsoy (the best soy milk imo) etc.

Thanks all for the suggestions. I will give them a try!

www.healthysupplies.co.uk/

These are my go to place when I feel like something unusual. Vegan jerky for example.

I think the key to nice vegan food is to embrace the underlying ingredients - vegetables, pulses, grains, tofu etc and really make them sing - rather than try and do mock meat things.

whois I completely agree with you, and that is how we eat almost all of the time. Occasionally a bit of seitan can be good though.

I think the key to nice vegan food is to try different things and find out what you like best, and if that's mock meats then so be it

If you have a local health foods or wholefoods store that's the place to start! I get nutritional yeast from amazon. I also think it's worth bearing in mind that the tofu you can get from supermarkets is usually freeze-dried and very soft and also horrible. Some tofu (cauldron brand for example) is available in bigger supermarkets and is nicer. My general rule of thumb is that if it's in the fridge section, that's the tofu you want. It's always best to buy fresh if possible.

althought they dont sell any vegan meat subs, they have loads of wholefoods and health foods. www.buywholefoodsonline.co.uk

-seitan - make it myself
--tofu - Tesco, Asian supermarket, Sainsbury's
--nutritional yeast - Amazon, 3 packs on a monthly order
--tempeh - health food shop
--vital wheat gluten - Amazon or health food shop
--chickpea flour - Tesco

--tofu - waitrose has a fab selection, I love the taifun brand

--nutritional yeast - amazon but I hate it, only got it the once

--chickpea flour - waitrose (gram flour)