While doing some grocery shopping I stumbled over a new product of the Alpro range. They added a plant-based alternative for low-fat cottage cheese, called Alpro Go On. As we use several of their products at home already and as I’m a frequent user of low-fat cottage cheese, I bought the unflavoured version in order to give it a try. This means that this Alpro Go On review is not sponsored by any means by Alpro and represents purely my personal opinion.

Alpro

A little background information about Alpro. Alpro has a wide range of plant-based products and has already been on the market for a long time. The products are rather rich in plant-based protein and full of many micronutrients. This makes them a good alternative for animal-based proteins or simply a great addition to your general diet.

As the products are all non-diary they are ultimately all lactose-free, which is great if you suffer, like the majority of people worldwide, from lactose intolerance. This is one of the main reasons why soy products are so popular in Asia. Most people in Asia are lactose intolerant and therefore cannot correctly digest dairy products.The soy success story began in 1973 in Belgium with a simple thought:

“What if all the goodness of soya, so valued in Asia for over 2,000 years, could be turned into something that anybody could enjoy, anytime – something as versatile as milk, for example. In time he passed this seed on to others, who thought it a very fine seed and determined to help it grow.”

Fast forward a few decades and you’ll find for instance soy, almond, rice, and hemp drinks in different flavours. But also replacements for other milk-based products, such as yoghurt, pudding desserts, cream, custard and now recently with the Alpro Go On even a replacement for cottage cheese, which this review is about.

Alpro Go On

The new Alpro Go On product is soy based alternative for low-fat cottage cheese, which I’ll call from now on soy quark (pronounced sɔɪ kwɑːrk) because it sounds cool and better than “soy low-fat cottage cheese”. The soy quark for all intents and purposes is very similar to their soy yoghurt in the current product range. The main difference is its the texture, which is still very smooth and silky but way thicker than the yoghurt alternative. This makes sense, as a creamy version of low-fat cottage cheese, which I will from now on refer to as quark, would be of similar texture.

Alpro Go On

Alpro Go On – Review

For the time being the soy quark comes in a natural flavor and as a soy quark treat mixed with different fruits (mango, blackcurrant, and passion fruit). I haven’t tried any of the treats yet, so I refrain from any comments here. The only thing I want to add is that the different flavours sound like they fit well with what I could taste from the natural flavour. That being said it is merely an idea based on extrapolating the tastes of other Alpro products (mainly the yoghurts) I’ve had in the past. If you had them already, let me know in the comments section how you liked them!

As the Alpro Go On is a (self-declared) alternative to low-fat cottage cheese, that’s what I’m comparing it to. Visually, they are not the same. The Alpro Go On has a  different colour, which is kind of brownish and similar to the colour of soy-based drinks. As it has already been said the texture is very silky and rather like a firmer version of soy yoghurt than quark. In my opinion, the color is of no importance and the texture is very good and great to eat it on the go. This isn’t the case for regular quark, to which you need to add some fluids to make it creamier. Interestingly enough the soy quark had a similar smell to quark. There was a slight but distinct acidity to it which you can easily relate to quark. It tastes good and not surprisingly nothing like quark.

To me, as a practical vegan, it comes also down to the macronutrients of the Alpro Go On and its respective rival quark. I picked a quark I usually buy, from the same shop I got the soy quark from. Here are the macros next to each other:

As you can see the macros don’t differ that much. The biggest and for me, personally, most important difference is in protein, which is significantly higher in the quark (11,8 %) as in the soy quark (6,2 %). This difference is important to me, as I need a lot of protein as fuel for all my workouts.

Furthermore, an important difference between the two are the types of proteins: the soy contains soy protein and the quark (cottage cheese) supplies you with casein protein. The molecules in casein protein act like a gel in the stomach, which then acts as a slow release protein source for the body, thus becomes a very efficient nutrient supplier. This continued release of amino acids can last several hours. For more information on this topic, the article “Slow and fast dietary proteins differently modulate postprandial protein accretion” by Boirie et al.

Conclusion

The Alpro Go On is a very good addition to the current product range of Alpro. It tastes good and has good macronutrients. That being said it is not a fully adequate replacement to my low-carb and high protein diet. Nevertheless, it’s a very versatile soy quark, but I wouldn’t eat it in its pure flavour.

It goes well as a dip with vegetables or can act as a base for other dips. Mash up some garlic and mix it in and you have a simple and easy, yet light, vegan aioli.

In my opinion, the biggest strengths of the Alpro Go On is when it’s used for baking. There it shows in flavour, texture, handling and most importantly taste that it’s meant to be a substitute for quark, thus becoming a delicious soy quark. I did just that when we used it to bake vegan cheesecake brownies, have a look at the recipe!

What do you think of this soy quark?