Picture the scene. A lovely friend of mine has invited me over for snacks and drinks and is in a food shop (which will remain nameless), trying to pick out crisps, crackers and choccies. After checking each product is vegetarian, a cursory glance at the allergens on the back reveals that almost every packet of goodies contains cow’s milk goats milk, whey… ‘Why,’ she asks me when I come round ‘do they put milk in everything?’ I’m at a bit of a loss. I was gutted to find out that, when I turned vegan, that my Monster Munch eating days would be over. Memories of swapping the crisps at school and putting them on my fingers like rings and then munching them off have been consigned to the vaults of history. Walkers (who make them) have added a milk derived ingredient fairly recently when they were removing monosodium glutamate (MSG) from their products. For me, this just amounts to replacing one evil with another, but hey ho.
Many people are shocked that loads of crisps contain milk. They are even more shocked when they realise that products like Quorn do too. Quorn is one of the most surprisingly un-vegan brands around. Not to worry though, soya mince and vegan sausages and burgers are readily available in supermarkets, so until Quorn wake up and get with the vegan programme, you needn’t miss out.
It’s no great surprise that lots of chocolate contains milk, when the clue is in the name (milk chocolate) or in the colour (white chocolate) but did you realise that even some brands of dark chocolate contain milk? It seems crazy, but it’s true. Again, a quick look at the back of the packet is all you need to do to establish what’s in there. Sometimes, it can be confusing. After Eights, for example, used to be vegan, but then they changed their recipe to include butterfat, which is of course another milk derivative. Another confusing thing is that European law states that if milk free products are produced in a factory that also produces products that contain milk, they have to put a wee disclaimer on their packets. It’s basically to cover their backs so that they can’t be sued by anyone with a severe allergy, but I have spoken to friends with allergies and most say they’d be happy to consume a milk free product, even if it did say ‘ May contain milk traces due to manufacturing methods used’ or whatever…Vegan organisations sell these foods, so as long as milk products (or any other animal ingredient of course!) doesn’t appear on the ingredients list, I’m generally happy to go with it.
Unless it says ‘Contains cow’s milk’ or something similar, it can be a bit of a minefield, so for your information, some of the commonest milk-related terms are: Butterfat; Caesin (mostly found in cheese); Lactose; Whey and Lactitol (E966).
The good news is there are lots of yummy snacks out there that don’t contain any cow juice at all, hurray! Most of Golden Wonder crisps are vegan and if, like me, you miss putting crisps on your fingers, Hula Hoops to the rescue! Or you could always go with Salt and Vinegar or Pickled Onion flavour Ringos. McCoys do a lovely Salt and Malt Vinegar flavour crisp and you’ve got a good choice with Kettle Chips too. I particularly enjoy Tyrrells vegetable crisps. They have very simple ingredients and are always the first to be scoffed at a party in my experience. Who wouldn’t feel good munching away at a beetroot-based crisp pretending to be healthy?
Even Pringles have options although their labelling can be a bit misleading.
Make sure where it says vegan that there is a little tick next to it (like on my favourites, Paprika flavour.) Sometimes it says vegan, next to vegetarian, but there’s no tick, so be aware. Bafflingly, Walkers have vegan crisps in BBQ Rib, Prawn Cocktail and Roast Gammon flavours amongst others, so if you’re craving a meaty flavoured crisp, don’t despair!
A lot of dairy free chocolate can be pricy, so if you’re shopping to impress, by all means go for Booja-Booja or Lindt 70% or something, but slightly more affordable and still party-like are Bendicks Bittermints or Elixabeth Shaw Dark chocolate Mint Crisp. A company dedicated to dairy free chocolate is Moo Free, which does all sorts of flavours, including milk and white chocolate, using rice milk. Also, check supermarket own brands, because they can hold pleasant surprises in the milk-free department, and not just in the ‘free-from’ section either.
So you see, avoiding dairy can be a bit mystifying at first but once you get the hang of it, it’s a breeze. Bear in mind though that INGREDIENTS CAN CHANGE, with companies fiddling about with recipes in the never ending pursuit of ‘new and improved’, so do check your favourite vegan products every now and again, especially if they’ve suddenly changed the packaging. Viva! have a great guide to going dairy free, as do many of the other animal charities. With lactose intolerance on the rise and many people simply wanting to cut back on dairy, demand is on the rise, so hopefully one day, dairy free will be the norm.
Really good article. Thankyou
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Janet. My dairy free favourites at the moment are Plamil mint chocolate (available from Holland and Barrett and Waitrose) or Morrison’s Savers dark chocolate, which, at 30p for 100g, is a bit of a bargain! Happy shopping 🙂
I’m not a vegan, though I love veggies! I am Lactose intolerant and I have to read the ingredients of every snack I buy in the supermarket. Really hate it! So I can understand this.
Thanks for your comment Alberto. Yes, reading packaging can be a real bind. Thankfully the common allergens, which of course include milk, are now usually printed in bold on packets. Also, as dairy consumption continues to fall, hopefully dairy-free products will become all the easier to come by. Be reassured that you are actually in the majority on a global scale, as 70% of the population on earth don’t drink milk after infancy. Things will get better!
Great article just found out all my issues are related to lactose intolerant so ready for my dairy free diet shocked at how many things contain milk or milk products Thankyou
Hula Hoops Beef contains milk. Boo
That’s a bummer 🙁 It always pays to check the ingredients list. I’m sure if you have a look on some other brands of beef flavoured crisps though, you’re sure to find some ‘accidentally vegan’ ones 🙂
I’m thinking of starting some kind of petition targeting a particular supermarket to introduce a policy to phase out milk in random products like crisps, sorbet, olive spread, vegetable stock cubes, etc. This has to stop!
We just need to coordinate our disgruntled voices together, and maybe they’ll listen. My logic is:
This slight change in policy wouldn’t affect the vast majority of customers, because the only ones who care about tiny amounts of dairy being in products are vegans/those who are lactose intolerant. Average people want real butter, real milk, real cheese, but they really won’t care if there’s a bit of milk in their crisps, olive spread or sorbet. However there’s a growing minority who do care, deeply!
i agree!
(continued) The dairy industry probably also cares, but who do they care more about? Their suppliers or their customers?
The supermarkets would literally be gaining a couple of percent of customers, with no backlash from another group on these kinds of products. Unless it alters the quality drastically, but I seriously doubt that.
And that tiny change spread over all of the products might actually add up to quite a lot of dairy being taken out of the system, which is great news for cows and the environment. If we can start with incremental change on milk as a minor ingredient being switched out, we could move into other ingredients like egg/honey, and slowly, slowly, without anyone really noticing, the food system will change.
I completely agree Alex. If you were to start a petition I would most definitely support it, as I’m sure would the wider vegan community. There are also many dairy free people who would lend their voices. As you say, most people are surprised crisps and so on contain milk, so they definitely wouldn’t miss it. I also completely agree that slow change is less of a shock, so more easily accepted by both businesses and suppliers. Let’s stay hopeful!
The Pringles are made by Proctor and Gamble, a company well-known for also making cosmetics products – and despite claims of Tony Blair years ago, certain companies have continued to engage in animal testing – Proctor and Gamble is one such company, which even had dogs ripped apart.
Thanks for your comment. This is an issue vegans face all the time, whether to buy vegan products made by non vegan companies. It’s tricky as I like to encourage large companies to produce vegan products by buying them, but at the same time, don’t want to increase the profits of unethical companies. The way I personally get round this is to a)Try to buy from smaller, independant companies; b)Try to buy from fully vegan businesses whenever possible; and c)Trying to influence large companies through social media to go in a vegan direction. Sadly, I have to accept that we live in a non vegan world, but we can certainly do all we can to change that. I appreciate that it’s difficult to research into every product you pick up in the supermarket, but once you learn about them, you can make more informed choices. I welcome any new information about anything that I feature on the site that allows people to follow their own conscience. Thanks again.
contrary to what you write, hula hoops ‘may contain milk’
There are many products that say on the packet ‘May contain milk.’ This is due to an EU directive that states you must declare this if the product is made using the same equipment as other products that contain milk. It really just means, a product that contains milk is produced on machinery, the factory then cleans that machinery before producing the vegan product. It’s essentially to cover themselves if there’s cross contamination for severe allergy sufferers. These products are still vegan, as long as they don’t contain animal products on the ingredients list of course. I hope this helps.
I seem to be accidentally going vegan. I have a diary intolerant baby who in breastfeeding and the milk protein upsets her. So im dairy free im seriously missing pizza, cake and chocolate.. but was so surprised when my bacon flavoured crisps had dairy and so many of my other favourites had diary. 🙁
Hi Tessa, Yes, many people find themselves in this position. Over 70% of the world’s population is intolerant to dairy, so your baby is certainly not alone! I understand missing these items from your diet, however the good news is there are plenty of alternatives for you to try. Smokey bacon Pringles are vegan goo.gl/NwfScY, as are Tesco bacon rashers goo.gl/sYFo3r and Sainsbury’s bacon crispies goo.gl/WuG9XR. It’s often worth looking at supermarket’s own brand of crisps for milk free versions. You may also find Eat Real crisps in the free from section of your supermarket http://www.eatreal.co.uk/products/ I particularly like Ten Acres crisps too, which are sold online and in health food stores http://tenacrecrisps.co.uk/products/
As far as pizza goes, I love pizza too! The White Rabbit pizza co have a lovely vegan pizza available at Sainsburys goo.gl/nLxDKM and Tesco’s isn’t too bad either goo.gl/R88eTE. Did you know that Pappa John’s and Pizza Hut both do a vegan base, so you can order their pizza’s with no cheese? Also, Pizza Hut do a vegan cheese in their restaurants. Ask Italian, Zizzi and Pizza Express all have vegan cheese on their pizzas too. 🙂
Ready made cakes can be harder to come by, but baking your own is easy. I’ve never had a recipe go wrong from this site http://www.isachandra.com/ but just search for vegan cake recipes online if you prefer and you’ll find thousands of results.
Again, own branded dark chocolate often doesn’t have milk in, just check the ingredients, because they do like to change them! Here’s an affordable option from Sainsbury’s goo.gl/BxH7kV
A great site for chocolates is https://vegantown.co.uk/ where you can find vegan smarties, vegan marshmallows, vegan fudge and countless other treats including vegan versions of snickers and mars bars.
I hope this has been helpful. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me here or on social media. Go vegan and the animals will thank you. 🙂
tyrells are now with milk. not fair.