Canadian Students Create New Vegan Gelato With a Unique Ingredient!
You’ve heard of vegan ice creams and gelatos using avocados, coconut cream, rice milk and a lot more to create smooth and creamy consistencies with flavors that can be impossible to differentiate from dairy-based options. While the varieties are seemingly endless in the plant-based world, a group of Canadian students have ventured into a different territory with their new healthy and vegan gelato, BiotaGelata.
Austen Neil, Sujata Patel, Chandre Van De Merwe, and Nicolle Mah from the University of Alberta opted to create something that was protein and nutrient rich, with fewer calories than the standard gelato, and made from local ingredients. Their key ingredient? Pulses, which are the seeds of legume plants such as white beans and kidney beans.
The founders created this dairy-free gelato for a competition that took place just last month hosted by Pulse Canada, the national industry association for pulse crops. Chair of the Alberta Pulse Growers Allison Ammeter gave the company a great review, stating:
“I never cease to be amazed at the unique ways that pulses can be processed into yummy food. If you had given me that gelato in a blind taste test, I would have said, ‘It’s a milk product.’ That gelato was incredible.”
The founders were inspired to create BiotaGelata after they worked at a gelato company over the summer. The product is made with fermented beans that are then mixed in the gelato machine along with the rest of the ingredients, to create the final product-which the team has in maple walnut, passion fruit, and dark chocolate cassis.