Navigating food as a vegan or vegetarian can be tough enough, but what about the things you drink? It might be easy to stick to vegan drinks if you want to. After all, water is vegan and you don’t need to drink anything else, most of the time. However, just because you don’t need to have other drinks, it doesn’t mean you don’t want them. Sometimes you want a tasty drink, whether it’s hot or cold. And, just like food, drinks can often have surprising ingredients that turn out to be neither vegan or vegetarian. If you want to stick to vegan drinks, you have to be careful.
Check Instant Drinks for Milk Powder
Instant hot drinks like coffee and hot chocolate can be really handy. You’ll often find them in hotel rooms, vending machines, or supermarket drinks machines. They’re also really useful to have on hand in various situations, including camping or any other time you need a way to make a quick drink. But you need to be careful with many of these drinks, which might contain milk or milk powder. Fortunately, milk needs to be highlighted as a potential allergen, so it should be easy to spot if a drink or drink powder contains it.
Look Out for Colourings
All kinds of things have traditionally been used to colour drinks and other foods. Lists of ingredients will often be somewhat vague about what is used as a colour or even a flavour, with some just saying that they’re natural. But some colourings could be non-vegan, so it’s important to look out for them. For example, red is sometimes achieved with cochineal extract, which is taken from cochineal bugs. However, these dyes are often artificially created these days, so you might not need to be quite so vigilant anymore.
Be Careful with Alcohol
If you enjoy a drink now and then, you probably know you have to be careful when it comes to alcohol. Several alcoholic drinks can potentially be non-vegan, including beer, cider and wine. However, these drinks don’t always contain animal ingredients and there are plenty of vegan options available. If you would rather play it safe, some non-alcoholic options can be a great choice. Non-alcoholic versions of beer, wine, spirits or cocktails like Citizen Spritz can help you avoid drinks you don’t want to consume. And if you’re careful about what you put in your body, drinking less alcohol or cutting it out altogether is a good move.
Know What Ingredients to Look For
Ultimately, it’s important to know what ingredients you should look for when you’re choosing drinks. It’s not always easy to tell right away if a product is vegan, and brands aren’t always clear about it. Some ingredients could be slightly more obvious than others. If you order a cocktail, you can take a good guess if it’s got milk, cream or egg whites in it. But some could be hiding, so watch out for things like isinglass in wine and beer, gelatin in cider, or Worcestershire sauce in tomato-based cocktails.
Being educated on potential non-vegan ingredients that could be in your drinks will help you make the right choices, both at home and when you’re out.
