These delicious Halloween treats are completely vegan
These classic hard but chewable candies use a vegetable derived anti-caking agent instead of an animal sourced agent. The sweet rainbow candies are also a wonderful flashback to childhood and are fun to trade.
Don't put these chewy rainbow candies on the healthy list, but do put them on the vegan list. When they first came out in 1979 they weren't vegan because they contained cochineal. But over the years Skittles has removed this ingredient, which incidentally is red food dye taken from a crushed female cochineal insect.
Not all traditional gummies have gelatin. Sour Patch Kids are "accidentally vegan,” meaning it wasn't the intention of the company to make a vegan candy, but they did it anyways! Instead of gelatin they use corn starch to bind them together. Nope, definitely not healthy, that's why it's a once a year treat!
Skip the cheesies loaded with chemicals and animal by-products and try crispy Kettle Brand sea salt chips made with only three ingredients. Their sea salt and vinegar flavor is also vegan, unlike many other brands that contain milk ingredients such as whey and lactose.
A popular Halloween treat is gummies. But most gummies are made with gelatin, which is produced with animal skin, tendons, cartilage, ligaments and bones. So not only is it not vegan, it's not even vegetarian. However, these adorable Annie's bunnies contain no animals, including rabbits, and are also organic and gluten free.
Don't expect to receive these vegan brownies in Halloween loot bags, but you can purchase them to swap with your kids for their non-vegan candy. The decadent non-GMO fudgy brownie made with organic sugar and chickpea flour is from Sweets From The Earth. This Canadian based family owned vegan company also makes nut-free cupcakes, cookies, S'mores, and Whoopie Pies - every vegan sweet tooth will be satisfied.
Remember Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? Vegan lovers rejoiced when Go Max Go invented Cleo's - creamy peanut butter in a rice milk chocolaty coating. Not only do they taste better than the original, but they’re dairy free.
These vegan lollipops created by two dads with young children pop up in trick-or-treat bags frequently and are nut free, gluten free and use non-GMO ingredients. This year Yum Earth also has special edition vegan Halloween gummy worms and bears.
These gelatin-free stretchy and delicious marshmallows are great for melting into S'mores, roasting, or eating out of the bag. Made without high-fructose corn syrup they are the first marshmallows to be non-GMO project verified. They currently have decadent pumpkin marshmallows just for Halloween.
Remember the Willy Wonka Candy Company that brought us Nerds in the 1980s? Well these adorable uneven moon rock candies are vegan. The double flavoured boxes packed with rainbow sweets are as popular today as they were decades ago. Look for the mini Nerd boxes in kid's Halloween loot bags.
Halloween is around the corner and many families will be carving silly pumpkin faces, making costumes, decorating homes with spooky spiders and gremlins and getting ready to feast on treats. Excited little trick or treaters will collect candies and chocolates in every colour under the rainbow. But these days many families follow a vegan plant-based diet and abstain from eating meat, fish, dairy, eggs, honey, gelatin, whey, or anything else taken from animals, and therefore don't eat everything they bring home.
Dr. Julie Chan, a board certified naturopathic doctor that has been trained extensively in Nutritional Medicine, founded Liberty Wellness Clinic in Markham, Ont. Many of her patients are vegan or vegetarian, including children.
"Families are going more plant-based and although some aren’t fully vegan, many have expressed how they’d like to reduce their meat intake. Most of my patients are off dairy because dairy is one of the most inflammatory foods and an obstacle to healing," Chan explains.
Chan, also vegan, believes, "Vegan diets can be incredibly healthy and most vegans are eating a nutrient-dense but calorically low diet which improves their overall body mass index (BMI), cholesterol values, blood sugar, cardiovascular health, and it can overall, reduce the risk of many chronic diseases.”
Canadian vegan families (or those with sensitivities to meat or dairy) can rejoice because there are so many delicious plant-based goodies available. Of course, just because food is vegan doesn't make it healthy, but Halloween is once a year, so if ever there was a night to indulge, this is it.
"There are a lot of commercial candies that are vegan. Keep in mind though that these candies are full of food colourings and high fructose corn syrup and are not healthy,” Chan says. “For parents who want to stick to plant based goodies this Halloween, there is an abundance of vegan treats that are available on the market but make sure you do read labels and watch out for food additives.”
So with that in mind, this mouth-watering spooktacular list includes plant-based Halloween treats from vegan companies and mainstream commercial brands.