Dustbury hates mayonnaise, and managed to write a whole blog post about it. I’m not being critical. Rather, I’m impressed that he was able to engender a whole condiment conversation in the comments section. I like mayo well enough, in egg salad or on a BLT. It should be real mayonnaise or perhaps the light (usually written as “lite”) version, whatever that is. But I HATE the low-fat versions.
And worse is that stuff that looks like mayonnaise but is sold as Miracle Whip salad dressing; I can always tell when that’s been substituted. I’m actually not sure WHAT it is, but “Miracle Whip does not meet the minimum requirement of 65% vegetable oil to be labeled as mayonnaise as dictated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” One of the worst things of my youth: bologna sandwiches on white bread with Miracle Whip.
This is similarly true of yogurt. Regular yogurt’s fine, and there are some decent lite ones, but the no-fat iterations I’ve tried are vile. The strange aftertaste, probably from some toxic chemical compound.
I used to drink 2% milk, then 1% for a long time, but now I have gotten used to skim. But the Daughter has not; she likes the 2%. Her mother once said it tasted like ice cream, and I scowled; surely it is fuller flavor, but it’s hardly ice cream because I know ice cream.
Ice cream is another product where the real thing is great, and the substitutes, not so much. I once had something called ice milk, which was disappointing, to say the least.
What food substitutes are acceptable to you, and which food items just can’t be replaced?
Fake cheese is nasty, it is not real cheese, but is called, “Cheese Food”. There is no milk products in it at just processed fat.
In Greensboro, Duke’s, the mayonnaise of the south, is the mayonnaise of choice. As for us, we’re mustard folk.
I grew up with skim milk. My wife likes 2%, which I found far too rich at first, but after years of it, I find skim milk too weak now.
Ice milk….bleah. Not a fan of mayo either. I’m with Thomas on the fake cheese food items. Why is it so hard to just have the real thing?!
I use skim, and I like mayo. A burger with mayo, black pepper, and a slice of onion? That’s some heaven, right there!
I also like Miracle Whip, to be honest. I like it in my chicken salad. Gives it a, well, a “tangy zip”.
The fat-free Greek yogurt works for me. The full-fat variety of it, in fact, triggers an “Oh no, you are eating straight sour cream!” response in me, and then I can’t eat it.
I’ve converted to Duke’s brand mayo, after reading about it in Southern Living. It requires a special trip for me (only one grocery store in my area carries it), but it seems worth it to me. I like Hellman’s as a second best, that’s the one I grew up using. Duke’s adds no sugar, which is why I think I like it better. (Well, there’s also the whole cachet of it being a little-known-outside-its-region brand. I guess I am a bit of a hipster in some ways…)
But yes, fat-free/low-fat/processed cheese is a NOPE. And I like cheese. Probably more than is good for me.
I eat a huge number of food substitutes.
Greek yogurt substitutes for regular yogurt, sour cream and occasionally mayo in recipes. It’s good in most of those, but I now hate sour cream and always use Greek yogurt in burritos, on chips, on chili, etc.
I often substitute homemade apple sauce or apple puree for oil or butter in baking. Comes out great.
I often substitute bulgur for rice in stir fry recipes, and brown rice for recipes where bulgur would be a little weird.
I love soy nut butter instead of peanut butter (although I still love peanut butter; soy nut butter has phytoestrogens.) I also often substitute hummus for peanut butter on whole wheat sandwiches. Very tasty.
When I really think about it, I substitute a whole grain, legume or Greek yogurt for most things that people usually have a white grain or a fatty dairy product.
My wife uses apple sauce as a substitute in cooking fairly often.