How to Read Ingredients Labels for New Vegans

Last Updated on 29 Apr, 2021

If you’re a new vegan, or trying to buy food for somebody who is vegan, reading ingredients labels on food products can seem daunting. I’m here to simplify everything with a quick cheat sheet on the easiest method to figure out what it is you’re buying!

If you would like this guide as a PDF, then download here for free.

The vegan logo

The Vegan Society’s vegan trademark logo of a V with a sunflower is on the packaging of some products that are vegan but not all of them. You can do a search of all registered products here!

Did you know there’s no legal definition of the term ‘vegan’? That’s why it’s even more important to do a quick glance of the ingredients to double check they’re safe.

If there’s no obvious vegan logo, or statement that it’s suitable for vegans, then keep reading for the quick sure-fire way to work out if something is vegan-friendly or not:

Step 1: Is it vegetarian?

Whilst not everything vegan-friendly is labelled as vegan, most things that are suitable for vegetarians are labelled as such. If I see something is labelled as suitable for vegetarians, then I know I am halfway there, and I just need to look out for milk, egg, and other non-vegan ingredients (listed below) on the ingredients label. Seeing something is vegetarian is a start, and I can be reassured that if it’s for bacon flavoured crisps, for example, that none of the flavourings and seasonings came from meat.

Step 2: Bold words (allergens)

The next step is to do a quick scan of the ingredients list.

When you read the ingredients label of a product, you’ll notice that some words are in bold – these are the allergens in the product (ingredients that people are commonly allergic to). Some allergens to look out for include: eggs, milk, cream, molluscs, fish and crustaceans (prawns, crabs, lobsters).

I’ve been caught out before, thinking there’s no way they’d put fish in crisps, and ate crisps with caviar in before when trying a sample in a health food shop. The taste was as unpleasant as you’d imagine!

You can read more about allergen labelling on the Food Standards Agency website.

Step 3: Ignore ‘may contain’

Many food products will contain an ingredients list and below it have a sentence that says ‘May contain: milk’ or ‘May contain: peanuts’. This is a precautionary measure, when the food product is made in an environment where there might be cross-contamination. For example, a vegan chocolate might say ‘may contain milk’ on it because it’s made in a factory which also makes chocolate that contains cow’s milk.

Because this is here just as a precaution for people will allergies, you can ignore this warning if the ingredients list is otherwise vegan-friendly.

Sneaky ingredients

So, what ingredients aren’t vegan? You can read my guide on how to go vegan for the basics, but there are also lots of ingredients that aren’t always obvious. This should be a helpful overview:

• Casein: this is derived from dairy.
• Castoreum: anal secretions from beavers (you learn something new every day, right?). Used in both perfume and in food.
• Cochineal: this comes from ground cochineal insects and is used as red food colouring in food and make-up. Also known as E120 or Carmine.
• E-numbers: E120, E322, E422, E471, E542, E631, E901 and E904. This is almost impossible to remember, so I’ve made a free downloadable card you can take with you while you’re out shopping! It’s available in two formats – a colour and black and white version for printing, and it is the size of a business card so will fit in your wallet, purse or pocket. If you can, I advise laminating it so it can be wiped clean with antibacterial wipes after shopping (so it’s COVID-friendly). DOWNLOAD HERE!
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• Gelatine: sometimes also spelled ‘gelatin’, this comes from the skin, connective tissue, and crushed bones of pigs and cows.
• Honey will not be a bolded ingredient, and it is not vegan. Beeswax is not vegan, either.
• Isinglass: comes from fish bladders. Unfortunately, this is rarely labelled, as it is used when making alcohol (usually beer, wine and cider) and alcohol is definitely not as good at advertising itself as vegan-friendly compared to food. Some wine bottles will say if it is suitable for vegans or not on the back, but it’s definitely a trickier area to navigate. I’ll write a blog post in the near future about vegan alcohol!
• L. Cysteine: this is an amino-acid that usually comes from poultry feathers, and is usually found in bread and other bakery products. Might also be writtten as L-Cysteine.
• Lactose: this is derived from dairy.
• Omega-3: most products that are enriched with Omega-3 are not vegan-friendly as it usually comes from fish. A vegan alternative is Omega-3 from algae.
• Shellac: you might find this in sweets (candy), or as a wax coating on fruit. It is a substance secreted by the female lac insect.
• Vitamin D3: Most Vitamin D3 comes from fish oil or sheep’s wool (also called Lanolin). You might find it in fortified cereal or bread. A vegan alternative for D2 and D3 comes from lichen.
• Whey: this is derived from dairy.

Sneaky Food

There are some foods that are important to double-check, because you might expect them to be vegan-friendly, but they’re not! Here are some examples:

• Alcohol – as I mentioned previously, isinglass is used to produce some beer, wine and cider, but some alcohol also includes egg, casein or gelatine.
• Bread – most of your standard bread is vegan, but some will include milk or L. Cysteine.
• Crisps – you can assume most cheese flavoured crisps will contain milk powder, whey or casein, but other flavours like salt n’ vinegar might surprise you, as they often contain milk, too.
• Dark chocolate – a sneaky one, because you’d expect dark chocolate to not contain milk, but some of them do, or contain ‘milk fat’, ‘milk powder’ or dairy butter.
• Deep-fried food – the batter sometimes contains eggs. E.g. onion rings, or tempura.
• Fresh pasta – usually contains eggs, especially if you find it in the fridge section of the supermarket.
• Fruit – some fruit, such as apples, are coated with a wax made from beeswax or shellac. Look out for ‘waxed’ fruit.
• Gaucamole – some guacamole products you find in the fridge section contain milk.
• Pesto – contains cheese.
• Potato products – by this I mean freezer products, like frozen chips or french fries, or roast potatoes. They might contain flavourings from animal fat, or contain butter.
• Roasted peanuts – gelatine is sometimes used.
• Sugar – non-vegan sugar tends to be a problem more in the US, but can occur in the UK, too. Some brands contain bone char (referred to as ‘natural carbon’ sometimes), which comes from the bones of cattle. Rest assured, most UK sugar brands are bone-char free, but it’s worth a quick look on the back of the packet.
• Sweets (candy) – lots of chewy sweets include gelatine, some are coated in shellac, and red, pink or orange sweets might contain carmine food colouring (from cochineal insects).
• Worcestershire sauce – contains anchovies usually. Remember that a Bloody Mary cocktail contains Worcestershire sauce as one of its ingredients!

‘Free From’

In supermarkets some food are ‘Free From’ products, and are usually clearly displayed as such. This is great, because it means shops are getting better at labelling their products for people with different dietary requirements. However, it can also be easy to assume that ‘Free From’ means vegan, but it might be free from wheat, or free from dairy but still contain eggs, so you still need to check the ingredients list if you’re buying a Free From product, unless it explicitly says ‘vegan’ on it.

I know if you’re new to reading ingredients labels this can all seem overwhelming, but it does get easier with time, and you’ll learn which foods in your favourite supermarket are vegan-friendly, and which ones aren’t. Lots of supermarkets have gotten really good at labelling their own products now, too. You’ll also get much faster at scanning ingredients lists! Don’t worry if you slip up a few times in the beginning, because it’s a learning process, and you will get better at it!

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Do you have any tips for new vegans who are trying to buy vegan-friendly food?

Header image by Gustavo Fring from Pexels

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