Hello! The school year is back and definitely keeping many of us at NYU super busy.
Worry not though, Fall Break is approaching which means we can take a breath–and read the Sustainablog! It’s been a while since our last segment of on vegan ice cream. So, welcome back to our fourth (and sadly final) review in our Vegan Ice Cream Taste Test. If you missed our original blog post, you can read it here to catch up on why we are on this ultimate quest for vegan ice cream. This week we take a look at this family-owned, Austin-based creamery, NadaMoo!
**Please note that our review does not reflect the views of New York University or the Office of Sustainability. We are a bunch of college students who love nature and are looking for a good time.
NadaMoo is a made up word that means, “no dairy”. Besides the cute name, NadaMoo first opened up shop in 2004, making small batches of coconut based ice cream and is a multi-generational family owned business. In addition to being dairy free, every NadaMoo pint is certified gluten-free, non-GMO, USDA Organic, Vegan and Fair Trade. Even with all these certifications, NadaMoo takes an active role in volunteering and donating ice cream to local nonprofits and causes.
Now that we are at the end of our Taste Test series, it was interesting to find that NadaMoo also had the lowest sugar content out of all the brands we tested in our Office. AND–it’s cholesterol free! Now with the health facts sorted out, let’s get into how sustainable NadaMoo is.
Sustainability:
Fair Trade: As seen in previous blog posts, having Fair Trade ingredients can be extremely sustainable. According to Fair Trade USA, “by establishing Fair Trade prices, farmers are able to practice sustainable growing techniques and are supported in learning new skills that will preserve their land for generations to come.”
Coconut Base: Just as a refresher, 17.6 lbs of CO2 is produced from a gallon of milk and about 4 gallons of water is needed to produce 1 gallon of milk. Milk, and dairy products, generally are resource intensive for the amount of agricultural land used, the energy is taken to preserve the longevity of their products, and the greenhouse gases produced by the livestock industry. By opting for a non-dairy base instead of milk, not as many resources are used to create an equally delicious vegan product (like ice cream)!
Packaging: NadaMoo gets their pints from Stanpac, which actually has quite a variety of sustainable initiatives in place for ice cream pints and other products they produce. All paperboard used is Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certified, which promotes sustainable forest managements in North America. Going deeper into SFI certifications, the initiative is based on different measures on protecting water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitats, and species at risk. More information on SFI certifications can be found here.
Price: $6-8
Most NadaMoo pints we found in NYC were at Whole Foods. The price for a pint isn’t too bad, especially considering the sustainability factors and certifications that come with it. We’d love to see NadaMoo at more stores in NYC though!
Delicious: (rated from 1 to 10, 10 being the best)
Our favorites: The Rockiest Road (10), Java Crunch (10), Mmm…Maple Pecan (9.2), Vanilla…ahhh (8.9)
WOW! Just, WOW! NadaMoo, you sneaky little pint, how are you so delicious?! Everyone at the office questioned if this had dairy products in it (and it didn’t!). The texture is so realistic to normal ice cream and has a really nice mouthful feeling to it. And if that didn’t win us over, the flavors that were sent to us were simply euphoric. We honestly had a hard time choosing favorites, they were all so delicious! We cannot get enough of this, so kudos to y’all for some mad delicious pints.
Conclusion
Oh, NadaMoo….sweet sweet NadaMoo. We are head over heels for NadaMoo ice cream. So much, that many of us in the office are now readjusting our monthly budgets to squeeze in a pint every month. I, myself, probably could write poetry solely about how delicious it was (and I don’t even write poetry)! We are hooked on how delicious NadaMoos products are but, of course, we would love to see NadaMoo incorporate more sustainable initiatives into their business (but hey–we’re biased). Cheers to a great product, all of us in the office look forward to seeing what NadaMoo does next!
…And that’s it for our Vegan Ice Cream Taste Test Series! I hope you enjoyed learning more about food and how it relates to sustainable lifestyle choices. We hope you give any of the products we reviewed a try. Let us know in the comments what flavors you liked best!