I am a big lover of yogurt. Plain, vanilla, low-fat, non-fat, savory or sweet, you put it in front of me and I’ll eat it.  The majority of my yogurt obsession probably stems from my Armenian background and countless hours watching my grandmother go through with the tedious process of making her own yogurt. I hope I can muster up the patience to try my hand at homemade yogurt one day as well.

When I made the decision to become a pescetarian over a year ago, I knew it was going to be hard for me to give up dairy products if I ever wanted to take the next step towards trying out veganism, but lately, I have been trying to limit my dairy intake. I drink soy milk whenever I can and have cut out butter consumption by eating Tofutti, which by the way, tastes amazing, even to my non-veg/pesc friends and family.

Even though I’ve made these subtle changes, I have always been wary of trying soy yogurts, mostly because I haven’t had very good experiences with them. They’ve always either had very strange flavors that left a WTF taste in my mouth, or they’ve tasted like a mad scientist conjured it up in a lab.

I had given up on trying soy yogurts, until one day this week when a hunger pain struck me in the gut sharply enough to make me get up and wander on over to the kitchen at work in search of something to eat. I noticed a package of yogurt in the fridge and became intrigued. It was only after I had snagged a cup and a spoon did I realize it was made from soy, and on top of that, it wasn’t yogurt, but pudding. “Oh dear,” I thought to myself, “this is going straight to the waste basket after one spoonful.”

But I was wrong. Oh was I ever.

The pudding I had had came from a company called ZenSoy which produces soy beverages and pudding that can be found in stores across 41 states. ZenSoy began in 1999 by the founders of the Elmhurst Dairy Brand, one of the largest milk producers in Metro New York. Their organic soy puddings were introduced in 2000 and can be found in Wild Oats stores across California.

It was delicious to say the least. The consistency, which is always a big factor in my decision making process where pudding and yogurts are concerned, was perfect – not too watery and easily scooped up with a spoon. The flavor was surprisingly delicious. I think something to note when trying out soy-based or vegan/vegetarian products is that expectations tend to be skewed. You should never think you’re going to get something that “tastes exactly like the real thing,” because, well, if you’re so concerned about the real thing, then you can just have it instead of whining about alternative products. With that said, ZenSoy pudding don’t taste exactly like milk-based pudding or yogurts, and they’re really not meant to. The important thing is that they taste good enough to be liked by this foodie.

I guess I should have known that I would’ve have liked it from the get go, since I have never once met a pudding I didn’t like.

My search however, doesn’t stop here. I’m still on the lookout for good soy yogurts and I suspect there are many I have not tried. Here’s to hoping they’ll be as decadent as ZenSoy’s puddings.