Non Fortified Nutritional Yeast Flakes, Whole Foods Based Protein Powder, Vegan, Gluten Free, Vitamins B, Beta-glucans, and All 18 Amino Acids (24 oz.)

When my wfpb recipes don’t work out, this purchase always helps . I’ll always have it in my refrig.I started my WFPB journey about 4 years ago and have seen a pretty remarkable change in my blood work, for the better. I had read “ how not to die” by Dr M Greger and I was convinced my highly processed, meat driven doctor was a cause of many of my issues. It took a good 1-2 months to stop craving certain foods but my health was improving and I was feeling better. I started experimenting with various products I had never tried before to help with my new way of cooking healthy. Dr Greger, who is def my hero, talked about nutritional yeast and its health benefits. He had suggested non- fortified. He never mentions which ones to try so I began my trial and error taste tests. Sari was my favorite and it’s a really clean product. Yes, I read in detail. I have no affiliation with any food product or company. I felt since it helped me stay plant based, bc my food tastes better, I wanted to give it a shout out. I use it mostly my stir fries, but also in my breakfast tofu eggs( not eggs), and on popcorn, even soups. It adds a cheese like flavor. It very low salt which is really impt to me. Other than cocoa powder, it’s my top favorite plant based additions to keep me plant based for life.So, so worth it.

In short, I designed an experiment comparing the taste of 4 different non-fortified nutritional yeast brands (standardized by weight, and emulsified in neutral oil & water to taste) and found that SariFoods was a fantastic tasting nutritional yeast and a very close runner-up to FoodsAlive (which was just slightly tastier). I highly recommend this brand!1. Foods Alive (The Winner!)2. SariFoods (a very close 2nd)3. Dr. Berg (pretty good, although a bit less flavorful than the other 2)4. NatureBell (terrible, tastes like paper)Background:I've used nutritional yeast in my recipes for years (there's a salad dressing you can make with it that’s surprisingly good). However, I have to make an extra effort to avoid nutritional yeast that’s fortified with synthetic B-vitamins. Using too much of the fortified kind reliably gives me unpleasant side effects like overstimulation, anxiety, sleeplessness, etc.So, SariFoods was my go-to brand for years. Their nutritional yeast tastes amazing and is emphatically non-fortified. Just straight nutritional yeast. Nothing else added. However, I was perusing Amazon one day and saw that Naturebell had a non-fortified nutritional yeast that was a lot cheaper per ounce. So I decided to give it a try.Huge mistake.I was shocked to find out that the taste between SariFoods' & Naturebell’s nutritional yeast was radically different. Like night and day. One of them (Naturebell’s) tasted like stale cardboard, while the other (SariFoods) had an insanely cheesy/nutty/umami flavor that was a potent flavor enhancer to every dish or sauce it was added to.Which led me to do this taste-test experiment comparing two more (4 total) non-fortified brands of nutritional yeast that you can find on Amazon.The Experiment:Each nutritional yeast was weighed out to approximately 3.5 grams*. Then I added 1/2th Tbsp of neutral oil & 1 Tbsp of warm water to each, and shook them vigorously to create an emulsion.(*I initially tried the experiment with equal volumes instead of equal weights until I realized that some of them are much denser than others. For example, on one extreme, FoodsAlive weighs ≈ 3.7 grams per 1/2th Tbsp, whereas Dr. Berg was only 2.2 grams per 1/2th Tbsp).Initial observations:Dr. Berg, FoodsAlive, and SariFoods had a more "natural"-looking, dark-beige color. Once emulsified, FoodsAlive revealed an even richer/darker color than the other two. NatureBell’s nutritional yeast, on the other hand, was much brighter & yellow in color. Dr. Berg’s was the flakiest (which explains why it weighed the least by volume) followed by NatureBell being the 2nd most flakey. FoodsAlive & SariFoods were more powdery & dense although they still had a general flakey-ness to them.Taste:In my opinion, FoodsAlive is the clear winner here. It was the most intensely flavorful and captured the essence of what I think nutritional yeast should taste like (cheesy, yeasty, slightly nutty, and undeniably umami).SariFoods was a very close second. Both FoodsAlive and SariFoods tasted the “cheesiest” in my opinion.Dr. Berg came in third. Nothing wrong with it. It was still pretty flavorful and tasty, just not as potent as the other two.NatureBell is the clear loser here, unfortunately. It tasted terrible like stale cardboard. I think something went wrong with their yeast growing operation. Or possibly they cut it with some cheap adulterant to save on costs. I don't know. But regardless of the reason, the flavor was simultaneously awful and bland. It had none of the complex cheesy/nutty/umami flavor that is recognizable as nutritional yeast to me. Also, I think it’s interesting to note the odd, vivid yellow color compared to the other three. Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) has an intense orange-ish/yellow color. Often times, nutritional yeast that IS fortified with B-vitamins, is more bright & yellow because of the addition of synthetic riboflavin. I cannot say for certain whether or not NatureBell actually did fortify their nutritional yeast with synthetic riboflavin (it’s possible that the color is just naturally occurring), but I think it's something to note.Disclaimer: I do not work for, nor am I associated in any way with SariFoods, FoodsAlive, Dr. Berg, or NatureBell. This was an independent test that I performed in my spare time and the results are based on my own taste which is highly subjective. I highly recommend you repeat this test on your own to compare results. Also, this test is not comprehensive. There are several other brands of non-fortified nutritional yeast on Amazon that I did not test but would like to in the future (Anthony's, LOOV, and MicroIngredients to name a few other brands).

I've bought this product on a couple of occasions. It's very tasty and does a good job of giving a cheese essence to foods. It's a non-synthetic nutritional yeast, too, which is important for those who are concerned about synthetics being used in foods. It's also an important consideration for anyone who has the MTHFR mutation, as synthetic folic acid isn't processed well. Unfortunately, I read that this product has changed in its formulation since I last bought it. Not sure what I'll do, when I need to get more.

Tastes pretty good doesn’t seem much different than other nutritional yeast products I have used.