How to Buy Vegan Food & Avoid Animal Products
Ingredients 101
While it can be difficult at first to know which foods contain animal products and which ingredients to avoid, buying vegan food has never been easier. Many products are now even labeled as vegan. To be vegan, a food must be free of all animal products whatsoever. Here is a primer on how to shop vegan.
Avoid the Obvious
When buying vegan food, whether for yourself or a friend, you’ll have to know how to check the ingredients for animal products. Avoid obvious offenders like meat (anything derived from poultry, beef, pork, lamb, fish or other flesh is a no-no), eggs, dairy (this includes milk, cheese and yogurt), and honey.
No Whey!: The Search for Hidden Pesky Animal Products
There is nothing worse than buying a seemingly vegan product only to discover it contains a hidden animal product, like casein, a common offender. Here are some of the most notorious non-vegan ingredients that vegans often run into:
Casein and caseinate are milk proteins that are found in “nondairy” creamers and are often added to soy cheeses to help them melt.
Gelatin, used to coat vitamins and found in marshmallows and certain candies, is a protein made from a mixture of boiled animal bones, skins and ligaments. This ingredient isn’t even vegetarian.
Lactose is a sugar from milk that is added to a variety of products.
Lard comes from a pig’s abdomen is sometimes used to make fried foods, like French fries and refried beans.
Tips and Tricks
If you want to save yourself from scourging every ingredients list, follow this rule. When you first pick up a product, check its cholesterol level. Since only food made with animal products have cholesterol, you can immediately tell if your product isn’t vegan if it has a cholesterol percentage. Take note: If the food doesn’t contain cholesterol, you still want to check the ingredients to make sure it’s vegan. Some animal product-laced foods, like those containing egg whites, also don’t contain cholesterol. Just think of this as your vegan screening process
Take the Easy Way Out
As time goes by and you become an ingredients-reading expert, you’ll begin to know which products are and aren’t vegan. After reading one food’s label, you won’t have to read it again. If this process scares you or you want to choose from a variety of foods that are already certified vegan, check out some vegan websites. There are now many companies that offer a diverse array of vegan goods.
