Sweet Ritual Vegan Ice Cream

One of the amazing parts about living in a progressive, cool city like Austin is that we have a ton of different food options.

For instance, the other night, I checked out a place called Sweet Ritual. It is a vegan ice cream shop tucked into a healthy juice bar. This place has experienced such success that they are moving into their own spot soon! They are open late on weekends, which is important to me. There was one blissful summer when Whole Foods Lamar (the headquarters of WF and basically the capital of downtown Austin) stayed open until 11 PM every night, and I’m still not over it even though all of the employees were cranky between 10 and 11.

Since I’m trying to cut out all dairy and eat a vegan diet (a decision I’m proud of and happy about), I was eager to check out a totally vegan ice cream spot.

I knew which flavor I wanted right away- they had MALT COOKIE DOUGH. I love malt and I love cookie dough, so it was a no brainer. Scott got DEATH METAL BY CHOCOLATE, which is like the most him flavor ever- metal + double chocolate + Scott. The guy making our cones said we were the most decisive customers he had ever had, since normally people sample every single option there.

Weeeellll…. That brings me to one of the cons of this place, and one of the issues I have with veganism in general.

Sweet Ritual has a lot of cool flavors, but some of them contain skittles or oreos. This is my problem. Oreos are vegan, yes. Skittles are made without animal products. However, I would never eat those things. I don’t want hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup or anything else like that in my system just because it’s vegan. I have to remember that vegan does NOT equal healthy or plant based.

So anyway, that was my issue. I had to avoid a lot of the flavors and add-ons (graham crackers, peanut butter, etc.) because even somewhere as discerning as a 100% vegan ice cream shop still doesn’t meet my dietary needs 100%. I don’t know why I should expect this anyway- I’m very specific. I was also disappointed that they advertised compostable cups but didn’t have a labeled compost bin anywhere. I took Scott’s cup home with me to compost here, though, so still a huge win- especially compared with most places in America!

I was thrilled with my ice cream, although it did contain some sprinkles and sprinkles can be hydrogenated, which made me nervous. Oh, the fun of being educated about ingredients! I would highly recommend this amazing little ice cream shop, and I can’t wait to go back and try the rest of their flavors.

The ice creams have cashew, coconut, or almond bases.

They have several different kinds of cones and different sizes for cups.

More vegan ice cream, please!

Have a great week,

Taylor