Vegenaise®, pronounced either Vegan-naise or with a soft g sound like vegetable, is a vegan spread similar in taste to mayonnaise. Since mayo in the US requires eggs to be called mayonnaise, the company Follow Your Heart® created a new name for this mayonnaise substitute. With four different types available, Vegenaise® isn’t just for vegans. Folks allergic to eggs or or who want to cut their cholesterol intake slightly may also enjoy it.

Follow Your Heart® is the company that produces the product, and it’s also the name of a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles which opened in 1971. The restaurant is located at the back of the Follow Your Heart® store, which has plenty of the vegan foods the company makes and other products that would appeal to vegetarians, vegans, and flexitarians alike. When possible, the Follow Your Heart® restaurant uses their own products like Vegenaise®. You might order Vegenaise® on a sandwich, but you’ll also find it used in many of the Follow Your Heart® salad dressings.

The basic ingredients of Vegenaise® are oil, apple cider vinegar, brown rice syrup, soy protein, salt, lemon juice, and mustard. The four varieties of the product differ in the type of oil used. Original Vegenaise® uses canola oil, but you can also get an expeller pressed canola oil version, one made with grapeseed oil, and an organic version made with soybean oil. All recipes are vegan, and all versions have 90 calories per tablespoon (14 grams). All versions are also low in saturated fat because of the oils used.

The claim that Vegenaise® is healthier for you must be weighed carefully. A comparison with Hellmann’s® or Best Foods® Mayonnaise show that both spreads contain the same amount of calories and approximately the same amount of saturated fat. The original version of the vegan spread contains 1 instead of 1.5 grams of saturated fat. Grapeseed and Organic types have exactly the same amount of saturated fat (1.5 grams) as Best Foods®. Best Foods® does contain eggs, however, which people may need to avoid because of allergies, or based on principle. In taste, Vegenaise® is often considered similar to, or as good as low-fat mayonnaise types and spreads like Miracle Whip®.

It may be difficult to find these spreads if you don’t live in a large urban area. Even at natural foods or health food stores, you may not find the company’s products and you won’t find Vegenaise® at most competing markets like Whole Foods® or Wild Oats®. If you live in the US or Canada, you can order Follow Your Heart® products directly from the company website.