Vegan Candy Is Dandy! Would you believe that some candies contain animal ingredients? Some candies are made from gelatin, which is mashed up cow skin, cartilage, and bones, and carmine, the red coloring used in some candies, is made from ground-up bugs. Wondering if some of your favorite sweets are animal-friendly? No worries-check out the list below and satisfy your sweet tooth with these vegan treats. But remember, just because the list above mentions tons of vegan candy options, that does NOT mean they are healthy options for regular consumption! My health food store has a PLETHORA of truly healthy treats that you can feel zero guilt sharing with your little ones. A visit to your local health food store or whole foods will fix you up with some guiltless treaters quick as a pram. But if you want to kick it old school and let the littles go sugar high nutso, check out this list of safe-to-nosh vegan treats:
Image Courtesy of ScienceDaily.com
CANDY:
Airheads taffy
Atkins peanut butter bars
Blow Pops
Brach’s Cinnamon Hard Candy
Charms lollipops
Chick-o-Sticks
Cracker Jack
Cry Babies
Dem Bones
Dots
Dum-Dums
Fireballs
Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews
Hubba Bubba bubblegum
Jolly Ranchers (lollipops and hard candy)
Jujubees
Jujyfruits
Lemonheads
Mambas
Mary Janes (regular and peanut butter kisses)
Now and Later
Pez
Ring Pop lollipops
Smarties (U.S. Brand)
Sour Patch Kids
Super Bubble
Swedish Fish
Sweet Tarts
Tropical Source mini chocolate bags
Twizzlers
Zotz
SNACKS:
Bean dip (make sure it’s lard-free)
Cracker Jack
Fritos
Lance’s Toasty Crackers
Lay’s Stax
Lay’s WOW! potato chips
Microwave popcorn (minus the real butter flavor)
Munchos
Peanuts, sunflower seeds, almonds, cashews, and Pistachios
Pretzels
Salsa
Skittles’ Mints
Tostitos
Trail mix
Triscuits
Wheat Thins
Endangered Species Bug Bites: Bite-size organic chocolate treats made with ethical chocolate. And 10% of net profits from E. Species chocolates are donated to help support species, habitat and humanity.
Dark Chocolate Halloween Treat Collection, 72 pieces, $18.
Organic Gummy Bears: Gelatin-free gummy bears made organic spinach powder, apple pectin, and natural fruit flavors.
The One Chocolate Bar, raw, guilt-free perfection from Gabrielle Brick.
Super gourmet, elegant, raw, gluten-free, sugar-free delicacies from One Lucky Duck.
Lagusta's Luscious Truffles, $15.
BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY: You won’t want to give these disgusting hidden animal ingredients the time of day. Take a good look at the ingredient list below so you know what to avoid in all your food stuffs, particularly your sweets.
Casein-Whey’s cousin, casein is made from curdled milk. Yuck!
Gelatin-Rhymes with “skeleton.” Coincidence? I think not. Gelatin is a protein made by boiling cows’ and pigs’ skin, tendons, ligaments, and bones. Jell-O? Heck, no!
Honey-Sure, honey tastes sweet, but you’ll get a bad taste in your mouth when you learn how it’s “harvested.” From a former beekeeper: “[T]ypically, beekeepers are gloved and netted to avoid stings (nearly every bee who stings will die due to her entrails being pulled from her body attached to her stinger.) Then the hives are opened as quickly as possible and the bees are ‘smoked.’ Smoke from a smoldering fire carried in a ‘smoker’ is pumped into the hive and the bees are ‘calmed.’ In spite of this, the combs are pulled quickly and many bees are crushed in the process. When a bee is hurt, she releases a chemical message that alerts and activates the hive members who proceed to attack the intruder-giving their lives in the process.”
Lard-Lard is such a gross word, it almost makes you wonder why they just don’t call it what it is: “Fat from hog abdomens.”
Pepsin-If the thought of eating lard turns your stomach, stay away from pepsin, a clotting agent from pigs’ stomachs, used in some cheeses and vitamins.
Rennet-Certain words just make you cringe, like coagulate, congeal, clot-which is what rennet, an enzyme taken from baby calves’ stomachs, is used for in cheese production.
Stearic Acid-It may sound less gross than “lard,” but stearic acid, which often rears its ugly head in chocolate and vitamins, comes from a fatty substance taken from slaughtered pigs’ stomachs-or from cows, sheep, or dogs and cats euthanized in animal shelters. Still want to chew on that piece of Fido?
Cetyl Palmitate-Check your head if you’re using margarine that contains cetyl palmitate, the fancy term for the waxy oil derived from sperm whales’ heads or from dolphins. “I can’t believe it’s not ” oh, wait. It is” Whale head wax”?
Urea-Urea comes from urine and other “bodily fluids.” It’s used to “brown” baked goods, like pretzels. Um, yeah. And the oven is for ??
