Are Starbursts vegan? It actually depends on where you live! But the news is bad for the US folks. Read on for more!
Following a vegan diet isn’t always as easy as it might seem. It isn’t too hard to stay away from obvious animal products, like meat, eggs, and dairy.
However, many foods that appear to be vegan are actually made with ingredients that come from animals.
It’s important to pay close attention to what you’re eating, especially when it comes to candy. Even though there are plenty of vegan candies on the market, there are also lots of sweets made with animal-derived ingredients you might not recognize.
Are Starbursts Vegan?
Many people assume that these chewy, fruit-flavored candies are fine for vegans to eat. Unfortunately, in the US, they contain an ingredient that vegans will want to avoid: gelatin.
Gelatin is a jelly-like ingredient that helps give Starbursts their chewy texture. It’s made from boiling animal parts in water. Gelatin comes from the bones, tissue, and skin of animals like cows and chickens.
With that said, you don’t necessarily have to give up Starbursts to follow a vegan diet.
In the UK and Australia, Starbursts, at least the classic Sour Chews (which you see in the pictures here), are made without gelatin, making them vegan-friendly. So if you live there, or love Starbursts enough to import them, you can keep eating them safely.
What Are Vegan Alternatives to Starbursts?
If you can’t get your candy from the UK, you still have plenty of options. There are lots of brands offering colorful chewy candies in fruity flavors, and a lot of these products are free of gelatin and other harmful ingredients. Instead of Starbursts, you could try:
- Mambas Fruit Chews
- Skittles
- Sour Patch Kids
- Twizzlers
- Swedish Fish
- Fruit-By-The-Foot
- Laffy Taffy
Even if you have to avoid Starbursts, you’ll find all kinds of vegan options in the candy aisle. Once you know the ingredients that you need to watch out for, you’ll be able to pick out vegan-safe candy anytime you have a craving for something sweet.
I also have these homemade vegan candy recipes!
- Vegan Peanut Butter Fudge
- Vegan Chocolate Fudge
- Healthy Peanut Butter Bars
- Caramel Fudge Candy
- Paleo Lemon Fudge
- Healthier Raspberry Truffles
I also have about 240 other vegan recipes and most of them are sweets!
What Candy Ingredients Aren’t Vegan?
It’s easy to mistakenly eat something that’s not vegan, even if you’re being careful. That’s why you’ll want to scan labels and look for these ingredients before adding a product to your shopping cart:
Isinglass: This is a type of gelatin that’s made from the bladders of fish. You’re most likely to see it in imported candies.
Albumen: This ingredient is usually derived from egg whites. It’s found in many cookies and is used for candy as well. Albumen can be made from vegetables, but you should only eat a product with albumen if the packaging says that it’s vegan.
Casein: This creamy ingredient comes from milk, but it can be found in products that are labeled dairy-free. Watch out for this ingredient in chocolate and sherbet.
Beeswax: Honey isn’t the only bee-based ingredient that you can find in sweets. It’s also common to see beeswax in candies with some sort of coating.
Carmine: If you’re picking up a red-colored candy, you need to check for carmine! This ingredient, which is often used in red coloring, comes from crushed bugs. Red dye number 40 is a vegan-safe alternative.
Shellac: This is a type of resin that’s made from insect secretions. It’s often used as a glaze in candies.
While these aren’t all the animal-based ingredients that are found in candy, they’re some of the ingredients that are most frequently used. If you’re doing a quick scan of a label, make sure you check for gelatin and all the other ingredients listed above.
If you’re not sure if a product is vegan or not, the safest thing that you can do is contact the manufacturer directly. This is also a fantastic way to let a product manufacturer know that you’re interested in vegan candy! If companies see that there’s a big demand for plant-based sweets, they’ll make a point of avoiding these ingredients.
Will Starbursts Be Vegan In the Future?
Many candy manufacturers have stopped using gelatin in their products. One example of this is Skittles. The manufacturer switched to a gelatin alternative in 2010, which means that Skittles are now safe for vegans to eat.
Since you can already find a vegan version of Starbursts in the UK, there’s a very good chance that the manufacturer will eventually stop using gelatin in the version sold in the United States as well.
Starbursts products are manufactured by The Wrigley Company. If you want to be able to eat this fruity snack while following a vegan diet, reach out to the company and let them know.
