Sprinkles look like nothing more than tiny bits of colored sugar. But most standard sprinkles are not vegan. The sneaky ingredient is confectioner's glaze, a shellac coating made from secretions of the lac insect. The good news is that vegan sprinkles do exist. Several brands make them without confectioner's glaze or any animal ingredients. You just need to know what to look for on the label. Here is everything you need to know about sprinkles, what makes them non-vegan, and which brands are safe to buy. Sprinkles Ingredients List Sugar Vegetable oil Cornstarch Confectioner's glaze Dextrin Food coloring Natural and artificial flavor Soy lecithin Carnauba wax Are Sprinkles Vegan? You can think of sprinkles as little tiny sugar candies.  The...

If you're new to veganism, ingredient labels can feel like a minefield. Cocoa butter sounds like it could contain dairy, but it doesn't. Cocoa butter is 100% vegan. It comes from the cocoa bean, which is a plant, and has nothing to do with dairy butter at all. The name trips people up because of the word "butter," but cocoa butter is simply the natural fat extracted from cocoa beans during chocolate production. It's what gives chocolate that smooth, melt-in-your-mouth texture. You'll find it in chocolate bars, skincare products, lip balms, and lotions. Below, we'll cover where cocoa butter comes from, how it's made, whether it's dairy-free (yes), and how to use it in cooking and skincare. Is Cocoa Butter...

Sprite has been around since 1961, and it is still one of the most popular sodas on the planet. If you follow a vegan lifestyle, the good news is that Sprite's ingredient list is pretty straightforward. No gelatin, no dyes, no obvious animal products. But is it really that simple? Let's look at what is actually in the can. Is Sprite Vegan? The lack of animal products or animal product derivatives in the manufacturing and production of the Sprite recipe is what would make this a vegan-friendly drink. Keep in mind, however, that veganism is not just about eating: it is a lifestyle devoid of any item, food, or service related in any way to the use of animals for...

Life Savers mints seem like they should be vegan. The ingredient list is short and mostly recognizable. But one item buried near the bottom of the label changes everything. Stearic acid, the ingredient that keeps the mint compacted, is often sourced from animal fat. Here is the full breakdown of what is in Life Saver mints and why they fall short. Life Saver Mint Ingredients Sugar Corn syrup High fructose corn syrup High fructose corn syrup Citric acid Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1 Natural and artificial flavors Stearic acid This basically shows a typical candy recipe: sugar, a variety of corn syrups, some high fructose, citric acid for flavoring plus additional flavor varieties, and coloring to make the product...

Is PB2 certified vegan? That's a great question, but first, what is it? If you have never heard of it, PB2 is simply powdered, dehydrated roasted peanuts with most of the oil removed. Though it may carry the disadvantage of not being a whole food, it has a very simple ingredients list that is completely free of chemicals and additives. PB2 has seen a lot of popularity recently among health and fitness circles. But, why would someone buy powdered, defatted peanuts when they could just buy regular peanut butter? PB2 carries a number of advantages over regular peanut butter if you have certain goals. Two tablespoons of this food have just 45 calories, 1 gram of fat, and 1 gram of sugar, plus 5...

Stepping into the soy sauce debate stirs up a lot of questions. Is soy sauce vegan friendly? The answer is debatable but as with all the other foods it's best to err on the side of caution. The tricky thing with soy sauce is the fermenting process. There is some gray area between products used during the fermentation process in items such as beer or soy sauce and what appears on the ingredients label. However, there are some safe non-fermented options like Tamari gluten free soy sauce. Skipping the fermentation process means no possibly hidden animal products. This all purpose seasoning works as a great substitute for vegan soy sauce! Soy Sauce Ingredients Using Kikkoman soy sauce ingredients label as...

Flour tortillas have many delicious variations and most traditional recipes have evolved over time to remove animal-based ingredients, however the question remains, are flour tortillas vegan? How do you know if certain flour tortillas conform to your vegan lifestyle? Let's take a look! Flour Tortilla Ingredients Flour Tortillas typically have very few ingredients which is appealing to those of us who live a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. Flour, baking soda, salt, oil, water and sometimes a pinch of sugar are the ingredients that it takes to make them. They are simple, clean and easy to pair with any style of cooking you enjoy. Even though Mexican style food seems to be a recurring theme with tortillas, if we think outside the...

As a vegan, you're probably in the habit of reading ingredient lists carefully. Most of the time, it's pretty easy to tell whether a food contains any animal products or not, but some ingredients can seem a bit more ambiguous. Lactic acid is one of those ingredients that can cause confusion. Is lactic acid vegan, or not? The term "lactic acid" itself is the root of the confusion here. The prefix "lac" means milk, and this leads many people to believe that lactic acid is derived from milk. However, this is a misconception. Lactic acid is typically derived from vegetable sources, so if your favorite foods contain this ingredient, don't panic - they're most likely vegan. Keep reading to learn...

Animal milk and foods derived from animal milk are popular in the Western world. Though animal milk can be a good source of protein and calcium, in reality it is not an optimal food. It is not really as nutritious as we are led to believe: It contains high amounts of unhealthy saturated fat, and the essential minerals in animal milk are actually found in greater abundance in foods like spinach and kale. Not to mention the fact that the majority of people in the world are actually lactose intolerant. Many people experience digestive problems and nutrient malabsorption from drinking animal milk. Animal milk fits into a vegetarian diet, as it doesn't require the slaughtering of animals to produce. However,...

Bubble tea, also called Boba tea, is one of the most popular drinks to come out of Taiwan in the last few decades. Naturally, that has left plenty of people wondering if vegan Boba is available. The answer is complicated. It is very easy to make bubble tea without including anything that comes from an animal, and doing so if often cheaper than using animal products. That's more than enough to make sure that vegan options are available. However, there are also recipes that do use animal products, and manufacturers don't always bother with clear labeling. If you want to be confident that you can drink your bubble tea, you're going to have to learn a little bit about the...