I often get asked how vegan sweets are made.
In this post I would like to focus on two main products: chocolate and gummy bears.
First of all, it is a false assumption that a vegan lifestyle restricts our enjoyment of sweets. Before I became vegan, I only bought the same boring sweets again and again. After I became vegan, I had to look for alternatives and I discovered a whole world of new products, choices and flavours!
Traditionally, gummy bears are produced with gelatin. I don´t want to go into the details here of what gelatine is, as it is quite disgusting if you know what it is! As gelatin comes from animals, vegan gummy bears have to be made without gelatin. Well, how are delicious vegan gummy bears without gelatin made?
Companies that produce vegan gummy bears often use pectin instead of gelatine to make the fruity-flavoured bears. It is important to point out that pectin is not necessarily "healthier" than gelatin, but at least when pectin is used you can enjoy animal-free gummy bears! So, what Pectin? Pectin is a polysaccharide starch found in the cell walls of fruits and vegetables. In terms of food composition, pectin is a gelling agent. In some gummy bears, pectin from apples is used. There are also alternatives to pectin, such as agar agar, which is a red algae. It depends on the brand, which substitute they use.
Okay, so let´s take a look at chocolate. For traditional chocolate, milk is oftentimes a central ingredient. Generally, all other ingredients in chocolate are either already "accidentally" vegan or can be substituted easily. However, as milk has traditionally played such a central role in making chocolate, it has been a challenge for many companies to substitute it. Luckily, through the introduction of various plant "milks", such as soy, oat, coconut, rice, hazelnut, ... it has become so much easier for chocolate makers to make delicious chocolate with plant-based "milk"! Soya "milk" has been around for a long time, but soya "milk" cannot be found in many vegan chocolates. You can mainly find "oat" or "rice" milk (powder). Both of these seem to work very well. They are both slightly sweet already and allow the chocolate manufacturers to create a base for various flavours.
Enjoy!
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