Written by Meredith Price & Emily Guido, PNW Intern, Fall 2020
Along with the fall season brings the spooky season. These days it seems like Halloween is all October-long and it’s got us feeling excited right down to our bones! We’re ready for horror movie nights with vegan candy and treats galore.
For those of you who have little kids and/or who will be expecting trick or treaters (if Halloween actually happens this year?) or you just want to eat some candy in the spirit of Halloween, we’ve got you covered! Especially because many common and well-known candies actually happen to be vegan.
Here’s a guide on how to spot vegan candy, which brands to choose and how to make your own as well as how to practice mindfulness around all of these sugary sweets.
How To Look For Vegan Candy
One quick way to determine if a candy is vegan is to look at the allergen statement on the package. Some of the top allergens are animal derived like milk and eggs.For example, underneath the ingredients of a candy it may say, “CONTAINS: milk, egg, wheat, soy.” This helps so you don’t need to read the entire ingredients list.
There is also another allergen statement that says “MAY CONTAIN”... (ex: “may contain milk”), but as a vegan you don’t need to worry about this. This simply means that the candy was processed in a facility that also processed certain allergens, so the candy may just contain tiny traces of them. Only if you’re actually allergic to the certain food(s) do you need to worry about this statement.
One pretty major caveat of this method is that there are still some animal derived foods that won’t be listed in the allergen statement. Some common ones for candy include: honey, gelatin and confectioner’s glaze. Confectioners glaze is commonly seen as an ingredient in sprinkles and other sweets (like candy corn!) and is derived from bugs (gross!). So once you see that there’s nothing animal derived in the allergen statement, quickly glance through the ingredients for any of these foods.
If you’re over reading labels and just want to know what to buy without thinking too much about it, trust us, we feel you. 2020, man.
Here’s a cheat sheet of 17 commercial candies that happen to be vegan that will be perfect for this time of year.
Swedish Fish
Sour Patch Kids
Dums Dums
Twizzlers
Nerds
Jolly Ranchers
Laffy Taffy
Blow Pops
Now and Later
Airheads
Pixie Sticks
Fruit Roll Ups
Sweet Tarts
Skittles
Ring Pops
Lemon Heads
Dark Chocolate Peanut Chews
Vegan Candy Brands
The brands listed above are what we call “accidentally vegan” which means that they didn’t intend to be vegan but their ingredients happen to be. If you want to support brands that do their part by either being all vegan or having some vegan-certified options, here are some of our favorites.
A large brand known as Enjoy Life carries a huge range of vegan and allergy friendly products and for Halloween, they even have individually wrapped miniature chocolate bars. In addition to their Halloween treats, they’ve got chocolate chips, chocolate bars, cookies, pancake mixes, brownie snack packs, energy bars and more! They make great snacks for kids to bring to school and for grown-ups to bring to work!
UNREAL is one of our favorite candy brands that has a lot of vegan-certified options (note: their milk chocolate products are not vegan). They specialize in everything chocolate, and have alternatives to all our favorite chocolate candies: peanut butter cups, chocolate covered coconut bars, and most amazingly, peanut m&m’s. They call them peanut gems, and we love putting them in homemade chocolate chip cookies.
If you’re more of a sugary candy fan rather than a chocolate fan, then you might want to try the brand Smart Sweets. Smart Sweets isn’t a completely vegan brand, but a big majority of their products are plant-based. They sell gummy candies that are actually really low in sugar so they’re fairly healthy and still taste sweet! One thing to be weary of is that since most of their plant-based gummies do not contain gelatin, they use a lot of plant fibers to give them that chewy, gummy texture. While fiber is of course healthy for you, having so much concentrated fiber at once may cause some GI upset. So if you can, try not to eat a large potion in one sitting!
Make Your Own Candy
Want something healthier but don’t want to dish out the cash for some healthy, vegan, low sugar, processed, candy alternative? Then you can try making your own candy!
You’d be surprised at how easily you can make some of your favorite vegan candies at home. Anything that’s made with chocolate will be the easiest to make. For example, if you really like chocolate peanut butter cups, then all you need is some vegan chocolate, peanut butter, a muffin tray and a microwave. Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals. Pour into the muffin tray to just fill the bottom. Let cool in the fridge until semi-hardened. Then spread some PB on top and cover with more melted chocolate. Once it sets, you have delicious homemade peanut butter cups!
If you like gummy candies, you can make healthy ones with fruit and agar agar powder. Agar agar is derived from seaweed and has a similar gelling effect that gelatin has. You can blend up your fruits and strain them to just get the juice, and then simmer the juice with agar agar powder. You can add a little sweetener of your choice. Pour into a mold and let sit in the fridge until it sets into gummies. These are great to make for kids!
Making fruit roll ups is actually quite easy too! It works best if you have a dehydrator for this one, but you can also use your oven on the lowest setting possible. Blend up your fruits and/or veggies and then spread the mixture evenly onto a cookie sheet lined with a silicone mat. Dry or bake the mixture until it becomes pliable like leather.
There are many recipes online for different kinds of fruit roll ups as well as the other candies mentioned. You just have to have to experiment and have fun!
Mindful Eating During Halloween
We fully encourage you to enjoy the candies and treats that come with this wicked-fun holiday. If you follow PNW and our philosophies, you know that we fully advocate for a balance of healthful plant-based eating that includes sweets.
What we want to avoid though is eating to the point of feeling overly full and/or uncomfortable which can happen when there is a big bowl of candy or chocolate and we’re eating mindlessly.
Here are some tips on how to eat mindfully so that you can enjoy Halloween to the fullest:
Listen to your body: Are you truly hungry, or just bored? Or thirsty? Or maybe you just want to enjoy the damn candy - that’s ok too. It’s still good to practice this with other meals as well.
Eat slowly and know when you are full: It takes 20 min for the stomach and brain to communicate so take breaks in between bites and slow down.
Use your senses: By paying attention to the smells, textures, and flavors of the foods we choose, it will make it much more enjoyable and satisfying.
Acknowledge your surroundings: If you find yourself eating while standing up, on the phone, or watching tv, try to eat sitting down without as many distractions.
Don’t strive for perfection: We can’t eat mindfully 100% of the time. Try to do it as often as you can and take stock of the times that you can’t. Accept those times when you can’t and move on.
Happy Halloween!
It’s amazing how many vegan options there are to enjoy on All Hallow’s Eve (and before...and after). So, creep it real and have some fun! Look at labels, go for a standard or a special candy, or be ambitious and make your own. No matter what option you choose, enjoy it mindfully when possible so that you can fully savor the flavors and avoid a tummy ache.
Bone appetite!
