Vegan Candy Is Dandy!

Would you believe that some candies contain animal ingredients? It's true! Some candies are made from things like 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. Can you believe that? Bugs! Blecch!

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:

Candy

Airheads taffy
Brach's Cinnamon Hard Candy
Brach's Hi-C Fruit Slices
Brach's Hi-C Orange Slices
Brach's Root Beer Barrels
Brach's Star Brites
Chocolove Dark Chocolate bar
Chocolove Cherries and Almonds Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Crystallized Ginger Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Orange Peel Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Raspberry Dark Chocolate bar
Chick-o-Sticks
Cry Babies
Dots
Dum-Dums
Fireballs
Hubba Bubba bubblegum
Jolly Ranchers (lollipops and hard candy)
Jujubees
Jujyfruits
Laffy Taffy (some varieties)
Lemonheads
Mambas
Mary Janes (regular and peanut butter kisses)
Mike and Ike
Panda Licorice
Runts
Smarties (U.S. Brand)
Sour Patch Kids
Super Bubble
Swedish Fish
Sweet Tarts
Twizzlers
Zotz

Snacks

Bremner Wafers
Cracker Jacks
Famous Amos Sandwich Cookies (Peanut Butter)
Ferrara Wafer Swirls With Chocolate
Fritos
Grandma's Peanut Butter Sandwich Cremes
Hain Apple Cinnamon Rice Cakes
Herr's Salsa and Lime Tortilla Chips
Keebler Club Crackers
Keebler Vienna Fingers
Kettle White Popcorn
Kool-Aid Gels
Krispy Kreme Fruit Pies
Lance Capitain's Wafers
Lance Choc-O Cookies
Lance Peanut Bar
Lance Sugar Wafers (Strawberry Creme)
Lance Sugar Wafers (Vanilla Creme)
Lay's Blue Corn Chips
Lay's Potato Chips (Natural Country Barbecue)
Lay's Potato Chips (Thick Cut Sea Salt)
Lay's Stax
Lay's WOW! Potato Chips
Lay's Yellow Corn Chips
Lundberg Brown Rice Cakes
Manischewitz Whole Wheat Matzo, Unsalted Matzo, and Savory Garlic Matzo
Melba Toast (Rye)
Melba Toast (Sesame)
Melba Toast (Wheat)
Microwave popcorn (minus the real butter flavor)
Munchos
Murray Southern Kitchen Iced Oatmeal Cookies
Nabisco Ginger Snaps
Nabisco Original Graham Crackers
Nabisco Spiced Cinnamon Cookies
Nabisco Teddy Grahams (Chocolate and Cinnamon)
New York Flatbreads (Everything and Garlic)
Nutter Butter Bites
Peanuts, sunflower seeds, almonds, cashews, and Pistachios
Quaker Apple Cinnamon Rice Cakes
Ritz Regular Crackers
Ritz Roasted Vegetable Crackers
Salsa
Skittles' Mints
Snyder's Pretzel Chips (Garden Veggie)
Snyder's Pretzel Sticks (Pumpernickel/Onion)
Soy Crisps (Barbecue, Deep Sea Salt, Garlic Onion, Salt and Vinegar, and Apple Cinnamon Crunch flavor)
Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos
Stacy's Pita Chips (Baked, Cinnamon Sugar, Pesto and Sundried Tomato, Taxarkana Hot, and Tuscan Herb)
Sun Chips Original flavor
SunSpire Organic Dark Chocolate Almonds
Toasteds Crackers (Sesame and Wheat)
Tostitos Bite Size Rounds Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Blue Corn Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Crispy Rounds Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Dipping Strips! Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Scoops Tortilla Chips
Baked Tostitos Scoops Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Multigrain Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Natural Blue Corn Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips
Tostitos Natural Yellow Corn Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips
Town House Original Crackers
Trail mix
Triscuits
Wasa Crispbread (Multi-Grain)
Wheat Thins (Original, Multi-Grain, Reduced Fat, and Sundried Tomato and Basil)
Zesta Original Crackers

Watch Your Mouth

Not what comes out but what goes in. Sure, you might follow the two-second rule when you drop your Tofutti Cutie on your kitchen floor, but you won’t want to give these disgusting hidden animal ingredients the time of day.

Casein—Whey’s cousin, casein is made from curdled milk. Yuck! Alternatives: soy protein, soy milk, and other vegetable milks.

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! Alternatives: carrageen (carrageenan, Irish moss), seaweeds (algin, agar-agar, kelp—used in jellies, plastics, medicine), pectin from fruits, dextrins, locust bean gum, cotton gum, silica gel.

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."

Alternatives: in foods—maple syrup, date sugar, syrups made from grains such as barley malt, turbinado sugar, molasses; in cosmetics—vegetable colors and oils.

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." Alternatives: pure vegetable fats or oils.

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.  Alternatives: microbial coagulating agents, bacteria culture, lemon juice, or vegetable rennet.

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. Alternatives: microbial coagulating agents, bacteria culture, lemon juice, or vegetable rennet.

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. Alternatives: Stearic acid can be found in many vegetable fats, coconut.

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. Alternatives: synthetic spermaceti, jojoba oil, and other vegetable emollients.

Urea—Urea comes from urine and other "bodily fluids." It’s used to "brown" baked goods, like pretzels. Alternatives: synthetics

When going to any convenience store, take a look around and see what other food services they offer. Often, you can get made-to-order sandwiches and salads. For instance, Speedway gas stations can make up MTO veggie wraps and sandwiches, and you can also snag bagels, garlic fries (minus the cheese), and cheese-free nachos.