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IN VEGAN DRINKS
Traditionally, it has been much easier to classify drinks as vegan friendly than foods. However, not all beverage manufacturers clearly label what is vegan and what is not, leading to some confusion among consumers. Peter Link, editor in chief of Vegconomist, sets the record straight.
The question which must be asked is: what constitutes vegan? Of course, there are always the safe vegan drinks, such as water, tea or a black filter coffee. With other beverages, however, it is far more difficult to know if the product is vegan or not. Is it enough to have no animal ingredients at all, or must the drink also be made without the use of animal products? For the purpose of this article, we will define vegan beverages as those that do not include animal products in the production process.
Juices, soft drinks and wine Most juices, soft drinks and wine do not contain any animal-based ingredients. Nevertheless, many of them are filtered through gelatin; thus, are not created without animal products.
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As an alternative to gelatin, manufacturers can turn to animal-free replacements. For one thing, there are numerous vegan-friendly gelatins that are made from algae, such as agaragar or alginate. For wines, mineral clay, such as bentonite, is usually used. However, this process is significantly more complex and expensive than with animal gelatin. The process is performed differently for wine than for other vegan products because filtering not only makes the drink clear but also changes its taste and preservability. In the case of soft drinks, the choice is now very wide. The Coca-Cola Company states that all of its soft drinks, such as Coke, Fanta and Sprite, are vegan. Even its biggest competitor, PepsiCo, for the most part no longer uses animal ingredients in the production of its drinks.
Energy drinks including Red Bull, Monster and Relentless are also all vegan. The widespread belief that the ingredient taurine comes from a bull is false. It's true that the word sounds like the Latin “taurus,” which means bull, and used to be extracted from the bile of the animal. Nowadays, however, the substance has nothing to do with bulls. Anyone who enjoys their energy drink these days gets a synthetically produced substance, which is absolutely vegan.
Vegan drink trends When it comes to vegan drinks, one often reads about various types of milk substitutes: almond, soy, oat, cashew and coconut milk, to name just a few. If you want to live vegan but don't want to give up your chocolate, strawberry or otherwise flavored milk, you don't have to. Companies such as Elmhurst and the food giant Danone now offer milk
