Vegans don’t eat anything that comes from an animal. That means no meat, fish, dairy, eggs, or honey. But it also means avoiding dozens of less obvious ingredients hiding in everyday foods like bread, candy, wine, and even orange juice. The full picture is broader than most people expect.
The Major Food Groups Vegans Avoid
The core exclusions are straightforward: all meat (beef, pork, lamb, poultry, game), all seafood (fish, shellfish, crustaceans), dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, cream), and eggs. These are the animal products most people think of first, and they’re the foundation of a vegan diet’s restrictions.
Honey is also excluded. Bees produce honey as their own food source, and harvesting it means replacing it with sugar substitutes that lack the micronutrients bees need to stay healthy. Commercial beekeeping also involves practices like clipping queen bees’ wings to prevent them from leaving the hive and selectively breeding colonies in ways that narrow the gene pool and increase disease risk. The Vegan Society’s position is that honey represents exploitation of animals, even if bees aren’t the first creatures that come to mind.
Hidden Animal Ingredients in Processed Foods
This is where things get tricky. Many packaged foods contain animal-derived ingredients that don’t announce themselves on the label in plain terms.
Gelatin is one of the most common. It’s a protein made from the bones, skin, and connective tissue of cows or pigs, and it shows up in gummy candy, marshmallows, Jell-O, frosted cereals, and even some brands of dry roasted peanuts (where it helps spices stick to the nuts).
Casein and whey are milk proteins that appear in places you wouldn’t expect. Many non-dairy coffee creamers contain casein despite the “non-dairy” label. Flavored potato chips, especially cheese-flavored varieties, often include casein, whey, or animal-derived enzymes.
L-cysteine is an amino acid used as a dough softener in commercial bread. It has traditionally been sourced from duck feathers, human hair, or hog hair. Sara Lee, for instance, has confirmed their L-cysteine comes from duck feathers. While synthetic versions exist, many brands still use animal-derived L-cysteine without making the source obvious on the label.
Lard (rendered pig fat) turns up in canned refried beans. Not all brands use it, but enough do that checking the label is essential.
Bone char is used to process white sugar. Sugar isn’t naturally white, and some manufacturers use charred cattle bones to filter and bleach it. This one is particularly hard to avoid because you can rarely tell from the packaging whether bone char was involved.
Colorings and Coatings From Insects
Two insect-derived ingredients are widespread in the food supply, particularly in candy and baked goods.
Carmine (also listed as cochineal, carminic acid, or E120) is a red dye extracted from crushed female cochineal beetles. It colors red candies, ice cream, yogurt, and fruit drinks. If a food has a vibrant red or pink color and isn’t using synthetic dye, carmine is a likely source.
Shellac, sometimes labeled as “confectioner’s glaze,” is a resin secreted by the female lac bug. It gives jelly beans, sprinkles, and some coated chocolates their shiny finish. The Vegan Society’s certification standards define “animal” to include all multicellular invertebrates, so insects count.
Wine, Beer, and Other Drinks
Alcohol is one of the most surprising categories for hidden animal products. Many wines and beers are clarified using animal-derived fining agents that remove haziness and unwanted flavors. These agents include gelatin, isinglass (collagen from fish bladders, primarily used in white wines), egg whites (used in red wines to soften harsh tannins), casein, and skim milk.
Because fining agents are used during processing and then removed, they often don’t appear on the ingredient label. In some countries, allergen labeling rules now require declaring milk and egg used in wine production, but isinglass from fish has been specifically exempted from labeling in wine and beer in places like Australia. The practical result is that you can’t reliably tell whether a bottle of wine is vegan just by reading the label. Apps and databases like Barnivore exist specifically to help identify vegan-friendly alcohol.
Even some fortified juices can contain animal products. Certain omega-3 enriched orange juices list tilapia, sardine, and anchovy among their ingredients.
Vitamins and Fortified Foods
Vitamin D3, the form most commonly added to supplements and fortified foods, is typically made from lanolin, a waxy substance extracted from sheep’s wool. The lanolin undergoes chemical conversion to produce cholecalciferol, which is identical to the vitamin D3 your skin makes from sunlight. Vitamin D2 is a plant-derived alternative, and some newer supplements use D3 sourced from lichen, but the standard version in most cereals, milks, and multivitamins comes from sheep.
Omega-3 supplements are another common issue. Most capsules use fish oil and are encased in gelatin. Vegan versions typically use algae-derived omega-3s in plant-based capsules.
How to Read Labels Effectively
Ingredient lists don’t always make animal origins clear. Here are the terms worth scanning for:
- Gelatin: cow or pig bones and connective tissue
- Casein, caseinate, whey: milk proteins
- Carmine, cochineal, E120: crushed beetles
- Shellac, confectioner’s glaze: lac bug secretion
- L-cysteine: often from feathers or hair
- Isinglass: fish bladder collagen
- Lecithin (E322): can be animal or plant-derived (soy lecithin is vegan, egg lecithin is not)
- Natural flavoring: a catch-all term that occasionally includes animal-derived compounds like castoreum, a secretion from beavers, though this is rare
Products carrying the Vegan Trademark from The Vegan Society have been verified to contain no animal products, by-products, or derivatives in either the product or its manufacturing process. The certification also requires companies to minimize cross-contamination with animal substances during production. When a product carries this logo, the label-reading work has already been done for you.