Vegan Drinks
Whether you have already made up your mind to follow a vegan diet, or you are yet considering making this life-changing decision, you could start your vegan quest by reading our great guide on popular vegan drinks.
What Is a Vegan Diet?
A vegan diet is devoid of all animal products and by-products. Vegans do not consume meat, eggs, dairy, honey or any other product that results in some kind of animal exploitation or cruelty. Practically a vegan diet could easily be referred to as a strict plant-based diet, focused on fruits, vegetables, seeds, grains and nuts.
The ethical aspect of veganism also results in not using any particular products with animal origin. For instance ethical vegans will refrain from wearing clothes and accessories made of silk, wool, fur, leather, feathers, snakeskin, even pearls. Similar philosophy would be applied to the cosmetics and toiletries.
Veganism is an increasingly popular lifestyle that people embrace for a number of different reasons. Whether they are concerned with their health, or they follow specific ethical standards or environmental views, the vegan diet is a somewhat personal protest against animal exploitation.
There is no single vegan diet that one should adhere to. Instead there are a variety of choices that you can opt from. Some vegan diets focus mainly on fruits and vegetables, others prioritize starches like potatoes, rice and corn, there are even vegan diets that are heavy on carbs.
Vegans must be extra careful with their diet and should ensure they’re getting all the vitamins and nutrients they need for a balanced diet. In order not to fall victims of any kind of nutrient deficiency, they should monitor their intake on main elements like: iron, zinc, vitamin D, calcium, B12, and omega-3 fatty acids.
Great Options for Vegan Drinks
It’s easy to control your diet when you work from home — you can do your research and draft your shopping list with care: reading food labels and ingredient lists to make sure everything you buy is vegan.
Eating out can be trickier. Lots of restaurants don’t draft vegan menus or offer meals and drinks with suspicious ingredients that end up being animal byproducts.
The majority of drinks should be vegan, but some do violate the vegan diet.
Here are some popular beverages that are safe for vegans to drink:
- All sodas that are products of the Coca Cola brand, including Coke, Barq’s Root Beer and Sprite.
- Regular Pepsi
- Almond Breeze - non-dairy milk and a great beverage among the vegan protein drinks
- Redbull - a great beverage among the vegan energy drinks category.
- Crush Soda - Vegan by mistake (Just like Oreo's) there are no animal products.
And here are some popular drinks to stay away from if you’re a vegan:
- Sunkist Orange Soda - contains gelatin, which is made of animal byproduct
- Diet Pepsi – contains a non-vegan ingredient that Pepsirefuses to reveal
- Monster coffee-flavored energy drinks - contains cream
- Some red-colored soft beverages - contain cochineal or the so-called carminic acid which is a dye made from an insect called the cochineal
- Certain beer, wine and liquor drinks - can be processed using animal byproducts.
When you think about veganism, you’re probably focusing mostly on what vegans eat. But, vegans are just as picky when choosing their drinks.
It is important to know that while some drinks may have all-vegan ingredients, they could be undergoing processes that involve the use of animal byproducts.
Save from water, one might wrongly conclude that vegans are pretty much left without any options as it comes to fancy beverages. Fortunately the case is not such. Let us lead the way in the Oasis of the Beverage Universe:
Is Milk Vegan
Milk is a no-go for vegans. Maybe many will get frustrated as to why vegans refrain from consuming dairy products. The truth is that even if the milk is derived without killing the animal (like it is the case with meat processing) often cows, goats or sheep are being physically maltreated throughout the milking process. This would involve forced impregnation and steroid treatment to name a couple.
Thus holding on to their violence-free ideology vegans rely on animal milk substitutes that are quite nourishing and tasty as a matter of fact. Good non-dairy vegan milk alternatives would be plant milks.
Plant milks are also a great solution for people who are lactose-intolerant or who have milk allergies. There is a great variety of vegan milks that you could choose from: think of soy milk, almond milk, cashew milk, hazelnut milk, macadamia milk, hemp milk, spelt milk, even milk made from rice, oats, or peas.
Is Almond Milk Vegan
Almond milk is a vegan drink worth considering. It is different from soy milk and dairy milk in a sense that it has fewer calories and less protein. The high antioxidant characteristics of this plant milk make it a good ally in the fight against cancer and heart disease. Almond milk is rich in calcium and contains small amount of healthy unsaturated fat.
A great example of vegan almond milk Brand is Almond Breeze.
Is Coconut Milk Vegan
Coconut Milk is again a vegan drink for it is dairy-free. It is made of the coconut meat that has been soaked in hot water. This vegan milk is a wide-spread drink that is often included in culinary recipes due to its exceptional taste and healthy characteristics. The coconut milk is usually added to smoothies, soups, desserts and even ice-creams.
A fine coconut milk alternative is coconut water. And while the coconut milk has much more intense taste and flavor, coconut water is just as refreshing and pleasant to your palette.
Many brands offer coconut water, among the top ones are:
Harmless Harvest Coconut Water
Taste Nirvana Premium Coconut Water
Is Soy Milk Vegan
Soy milk is the closest vegan milk to the original dairy milk. It is just as nutritious and it’s the most popular alternative to cow’s milk. While it has a lower amount of calories it is yet a good source of proteins and calcium. It is believed to be a healthy drink that lowers the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
Soy milk also comes in a wide range of flavors, including chocolate, vanilla, and banana.
At Beverage Universe we could gladly offer you a pretty tasty soy milk drink, namely Silk Soy Milk, which also comes in vanilla flavor.
Is Oat Milk Vegan
Oat milk is a dairy-free drink that strongly reminds of low-fat milk. It has a sweet taste and contains more fibers that the rest of the plant milks out there. This specific characteristic of the soy milk makes it exceptionally favorable as it comes to regulating digestion and lowering cholesterol levels. With its higher levels of carbohydrates and sugar this vegan milk might not be the perfect beverage for people suffering from diabetes though.
We will strongly recommend taking a sip of our fine oat milk selection, starting with:
Pacific Foods – Organic Oat Barista Edition -
Is Flavored Water Vegan
Flavored drinks could be a hassle to modern vegans. Often flavored drinks do not reveal in full their ingredients and sometimes brands tend to use animal-based flavors to reach the desired final result with their non-alcoholic drinks.
So in order to help you out on your quest towards finding the utter vegan flavored water, we’ve draft a compact list of top choices for you:
Hint Water Variety Pack - a pack of 12 bottles of flavored water all of them using natural flavors from non-GMO plants. With only a whisper of fruit flavor in each bottle, we offer 3 bottles per flavor, which range from Watermelon, Blackberry, Crisp Apple, and Pineapple.
Found - Sparkling Watermelon Basil - the watermelon and basil complement each other in an original way and are further improved when combined with the delicious naturally sparkling water from Mt. Uludag in Turkey.
Is Soda Vegan
While the majority of the soda drinks are vegan, some soda manufacturers might use an animal-based ingredient to enrich beverage flavor or color. Don’t bother tracing back all those vegan soda drinks on the market - we have done the research for you, just take a look at the following list and pick your favorite vegan soda drink with a piece of mind:
Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water and Fever Tree Indian Tonic Water one
Lacroix Coco - coconut flavored sparkling water.
East Imperial Yuzu Tonic is a robust citrus bomb upfront with the yuzu zest playing hero alongside the bitterness of quinine. The finish is somewhat sherbert with a moorish floral and sweet note. Yuzu, found during the cooler months in Northern Asia, particularly Japan, is an aromatic sweet citrus fruit with distinct zesty flavour, often described as a hybrid between a mandarin and a Meyer lemon. We recommend pairing Yuzu Tonic with traditional London dry gins and citrus-forward spirits. 100% Natural, Gluten FREE, Kosher, Non GMO, Vegan.
Brooklyn Crafted - Extra Spicy Ginger Beer is extra bold award-winning ginger kick available in 12oz. Or 7 oz. bottles. It is perfect as a cocktail mixer. It’s made with pure cane sugar and contains unfiltered ginger pieces that you can see and taste. Brooklyn Ginger Beer comes in 5 flavors (Classic, Extra Spicy, Earl Grey, Mango, and Lemon-Lime) and they are all OU Kosher, and vegan.
Bruce Cost Ginger Ale Blood Orange with Meyer Lemon offers a sweet citrus explosion with a slight and welcome bitterness. Unique among ginger ales, it's made with only fresh ginger and pure cane sugar & all our flavors start with this deliciously simple formula. Unfiltered, with tiny ginger particles, and shaken slightly before pouring, it has the adult "mouth feel" of a beer or wine. It even provides iron, calcium and vitamin A and C. It is 100% Natural, gluten free, Kosher, has no artificial flavors, no artificial sweeteners, no gums or stabilizers, no GMO, it’s soy free, and vegan.
Can Vegans Drink Coffee
Vegans who are also coffee aficionados should keep in mind that not all coffee drinks are vegan.
For instance you are safe drinking regular black coffee, but you should refrain from ordering cappuccino. You can enjoy milk with your coffee, of course, if you go for plant-based milk (check the vegan milk options listed above).
However, interesting coffee substitutes could also be some vegan caffeinated drinks like:
Bai Panama Beach – Vegan Purified Water is Anti-Oxidant, Caffeinated beverage that is gluten free, Kosher, low in calories, has no artificial flavors, and no GMO ingredients.
Get Vegan Drinks at Beverage Universe
If you follow a vegan diet, the best thing you can do is always double check whether a drink is vegan. If you’re looking to buy vegan beverages in bulk, make sure to check out the vegan options at the Beverage Universe store.
