Fast Food Finds The Easiest Way To Go Vegan

I'm telling you, vegan milkshakes are pretty damn good. And like all the best plant-based food, you don't have to be a vegan to appreciate them. I'm a happy omnivore, yet I outright crave vegan milkshakes on a regular basis. You can probably count on seeing more of them around, too, because chains like Shake Shack are throwing their hats into the proverbial ring by testing vegan desserts at select locations.

QSR Magazine reports that the high-end burger chain has partnered up with a company called NotCo, a Chilean startup that specializes in vegan dairy replacements. NotCo claims to have engineered a way to replicate the creaminess of the animal components (including eggs) in order to make a pretty damn accurate chocolate custard and milkshake.

"Shake Shack is a brand that I've always loved, and grew up enjoying," Matias Muchnick, CEO and co-founder of NotCo, tells QSR. "Their food is unfussy, consistently delicious, and high quality. In a way, Shake Shack has created the perfect blueprint for what we want to emulate with our plant-based foods, and we're so excited to be kicking off this journey into Food Service with their team."

Dessert is a pretty great way to add some vegan components to your diet without sacrificing much at all. Vegan milkshakes are a stellar product, specifically because technology, plus some good old-fashioned practice and experimentation, has yielded us some really convincing copies of the real thing.

I'm not about to tell you that you ought to go vegan. I'd be a hypocrite if I said you should, considering I eat animal products at nearly every meal (oh, cheese, how I love thee too much). But honestly, I think you'd be hard-pressed to notice much of a difference with some desserts. I've had vegan cakes and cookies whose ingredient swaps are utterly undetectable—and if they're so good, why not opt for the vegan version? People get so testy about this shit for no reason.

It doesn't all have to be McPlants and vegan hot dogs. Dairy is another animal product that can be easily swapped out with plant-based stuff and suffer no loss in deliciousness. So don't be surprised if you see other chains starting to head in this direction. As long as it can replicate that richness, a vegan milkshake is always worth seeking out.