You may want to find out if Peeps are the perfect vegan-friendly snack for that camping trip you’re planning. Peeps find pride in their marshmallows being a fantastic combo of sweet and fluffy. You can take them on your next hike or have them as a midday snack. They come in a wide variety of flavors which include: Cotton Candy, Fruit Punch Sour Watermelon, and Party Cake. But can you add it to your vegan diet? Continue reading to find out.
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Are Peeps Vegan-Friendly?
The answer is: No
Unfortunately, Peeps are not vegan-friendly as they contain gelatin. They also may contain milk and eggs. Artificial colors used in Peeps may also subject animals to cruelty.
What Are Peeps Made Of?
Nutritional Information
Ingredients
The Ingredients are: Sugar, Corn Syrup, Gelatin, Contains Less Than 0.5% Of The Following: Maltodextrin, Natural Flavors, Yellow #5 (Tartrazine), Yellow #6, Blue #1, Potassium Sorbate (A Preservative). Allergen information: May Contain Milk, Soy, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Egg, And Wheat.
Why Are Peeps Not Vegan-Friendly?
Peeps are not vegan-friendly because it contains gelatin. Gelatin is made by boiling ligaments, tissues, and or bones of animals, usually cows or pigs. So, it is not suitable for vegans to eat. There is a type of gelatin that is not animal-sourced however, Just Born, the parent company of Peeps has said that the gelatin in their marshmallows is “pork-derived”.
PEEPS®: Our marshmallow candies are not vegan because they contain pork-derived gelatin.
https://www.justborn.com/faqs/
Natural flavors can be made from either animal sources or plant sources. While Peeps has not said which of the sources they use, strict vegans tend to err on the side of caution by not eating products with natural flavors.
Artificial colors are vegan-friendly in that they don’t contain animal sources. However, they expose animals to cruelty. The FDA requires that some artificial colors, including yellow 5 and yellow 6, be tested before they can be included in food for humans. The animals that these dyes are tested on are later euthanized because the testing can cause potentially fatal side effects.
When a package includes ingredients that the product “May Contain”, it is most often because their product is processed either in the same facility or on the same production line as products that include them. Just Born has confirmed that they include this on their packaging because some Peeps varieties contain milk and are processed on the same line as the regular Peeps.
Those little Peeps chicks are the sweetest things. Literally. One serving of Peeps delivers a whopping 25g of added sugar to your diet. That’s 50% of your daily intake recommended by the American Heart Association. Do yourself a favor and avoid eating half your sugar requirements in one snack time.
Final Thoughts
We’re sorry to say that in all aspects Peeps may not be the right snack for you. They have animal-sourced ingredients and the dyes inside of them expose animals to cruel testing. They might also be exposed to cross-contamination with other products that contain milk or eggs. Your campfire song may just have to go together with another type of roasted marshmallow!
For more information on Peeps got to: https://www.justborn.com