Soy sauce is OK, but I think Bragg's 'hides' better. Cooking 10 weeks of the year for an American vego child in regional Australia was a bit of a challenge back before we had the products she was used to (or anything much except Sanitarium). Scratch cooking for a palate accustomed to the flavours of these things led me to adding her favourite, Bragg's Aminos (outrageous import price), so went to soy sauce (even saltier). Making the dreaded seitan products led to nutritional yeast flakes. Lightbulb moment. If it had any other salty ingredients, I added yeast flakes, but if I was going to add salt anyway and the colour wasn't out of place, I used Vegemite, Aussie Mite, Promite etc, whatever was in the pantry. As the child concerned suffers from serious Imaginitis, I had to slip it in (or prep for the next day after she went to bed). She didn't know until I 'let' her 'catch' me preparing a favourite dish. I think it is good to challenge the challenged! I use a lot of different umami rich ingredients for cooking sans the Vego. I add a very little Vegemite to some wet, mainly beefy dishes, but I wouldn't use the yeast spreads in quite a few places e.g. pasted anchovies, not Vegemite in veal and pork meatloaf. Not surprisingly, the Vego's father also suffers from Imaginitis, so I didn't immediately tell him about the anchovies, which he claimed to hate. Introduced to me by a teenager: toasted fruit bread, butter, Promite, grated tasty (sharp cheddar style) cheese, then under the griller/broiler. Thanks Andrew! Chris, I'll take your word on the hot chocolate! I do add 1/4 pinch of salt to black coffee. Discovered this when I had only seawater to rinse mugs in. Maybe as you make hot chocolate without milk, a bit of salt would work for you? The big advantage to Vegemite/Promite IS the salt. Ignore the use by date, it's irrelevant. Polly