If you’re on a vegan diet, you’re likely aware of the most obvious non-vegan-friendly foods like juicy burgers and steaks – but what about things like sweeteners?
Honey is a popular sweetener that is not considered vegan-friendly because it’s derived from animals (bees).
We’ll explain more about why honey isn’t vegan, which other common sweeteners might not be vegan, and suggest several alternative sweeteners that align with a vegan lifestyle in the article below!
What makes something vegan or not?
A vegan diet is one that excludes all animal-derived products, including meat, fish, eggs, and cow’s milk. Some foods avoided on a vegan diet aren’t as obvious, such as gelatin (typically made from animal bone collagen) or foods with hidden non-vegan ingredients like certain types of bread (can include milk, eggs, etc.).
People follow vegan diets for various reasons but typically include health and ethical motivations. It isn’t one of the more popular diets in the United States, with only around 3% of Americans calling themselves vegan!
Is honey vegan?
Vegan diets also avoid insects, which are considered animals. Because bees make honey (by collecting nectar from flowers), vegans avoid honey and products including honey.
That means that the answer is no – honey is not vegan! Here is the Vegan Society’s statement on honey:
“Honey is made by bees for bees, and their health can be sacrificed when it is harvested by humans. Importantly, harvesting honey does not correlate with The Vegan Society’s definition of veganism, which seeks to exclude not just cruelty, but exploitation.”
Is white sugar vegan?
The most popular sweetener in most people’s pantries is cane sugar (white sugar), and we do have something to say about that in terms of being vegan.
If cane sugar is produced using bone char to make it white, it isn’t considered vegan. That doesn’t mean you can’t use cane sugar on a vegan diet – just opt for raw, unbleached cane sugar, or sugar that is certified vegan (more on that next!).
Vegan-friendly sweeteners
One of the ways you can ensure you’re choosing a vegan-friendly sweetener is to check to see if it’s certified vegan through the Vegan Action/Vegan Awareness Foundation.
Otherwise, here are several examples of sweeteners that are considered vegan-friendly!
- All artificial sweeteners & sugar alcohols (Splenda, xylitol, etc.)
- Agave nectar
- Barbados sugar (muscovado sugar)
- Barley malt syrup
- Beet sugar
- Brown rice syrup
- Brown sugar
- Cane sugar (raw/unbleached)
- Chicory root syrup
- Coconut sugar
- Corn syrup (including high-fructose corn syrup)
- Date sugar (and date paste)
- Demerara sugar
- Dextrose
- Fruit juice concentrates
- Glucose powder
- Lucuma powder
- Maltodextrin
- Maple sugar
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Monk fruit sweetener
- Sorghum syrup
- Steviol glycosides (Stevia)
- Turbinado sugar (raw sugar)
- Yacon syrup
What is “vegan honey”?
If you search for “vegan honey”, you’ll likely see a product that looks like honey but claims it’s vegan.
“Vegan” honey is made to look like honey, but it’s made with vegan-friendly ingredients. Here’s a list of ingredients for Simple Truth brand’s “Vegan Honee”:
- Agave Nectar
- Brewed Chamomile Tea
- Cane Sugar
- Apple Juice
- Certified Gluten-Free Beer (water, millet, buckwheat, yeast, & hops)
- Natural Flavors
So keep in mind that if you see something that looks like honey and says it’s vegan, it isn’t real honey, since real honey only comes from bees!
FAQs:
The term “plant-based diet” is quite broad and can include vegetarians as well as vegans. Unlike vegans, vegetarians often include some animal-derived products in their diet, such as dairy products, eggs, and foods like honey.
If you’re on a vegan diet (one of the strictest plant-based diets that excludes all animal-derived products), honey is avoided since it’s made from bees, which are considered animals.
Since vegans consider honey to be made as a result of cruelty to bees, the main type of cruelty-free honey marketed isn’t actually honey, but a vegan-friendly concoction of ingredients to resemble honey.
Some brands of honey claim they use ethical practices while harvesting the honey, but even those types aren’t considered vegan-friendly since honey is considered an animal (bees) byproduct.
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