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It contains

  • Wheat solids (62.6%) {Whole Wheat Flour (31.3%),
  • Wheat Flour (31.3%)},
  • Sugar,
  • Cocoa Solids (5.4%),
  • Minerals,
  • Edible Vegetable Oil (Palmolein),
  • Malt Extract,
  • Iodized Salt,
  • Color (INS 150d),
  • Vitamins,
  • Antioxidant (INS 320)

It also says that it

Contains permitted natural color & added flavors (nature identical & artificial cream flavoring substances) contains gluten. May contain traces of almond (treenut).

I recently turned vegan and it is very hard for me to determine whether something is vegan or not. Is there a site or PDF that can tell me about all I need to know?

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  • @AlexanderRossa I just eat it without milk now. I will buy soy milk from tomorrow. Sir so will I need to Google about every ingredient I am unsure about? Sir what did you do when you became vegan? Commented Jan 18, 2018 at 17:04

1 Answer 1

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As for these cereals, the nutritional information you provided does not mention any animal ingredients - you can Google the ones you are not sure about, such as the obscure Color (INS 150d), since these can occasionally be of natural (and animal at that) origin. The information about allergens does not mention milk either. A number of vegan blogs also mention them as vegan breakfast cereal alternatives, although there are no references there to anything substantial that would prove so. All in all, it is probably safe to assume that these are vegan.

As for the whole discerning what is vegan and what is not thing, I doubt that there is a PDF that you can use to guide yourself in the long-term. Using common sense and putting a bit of effort into finding out stuff might be a better alternative. Initially, you would have to Google things to be 100% sure, or perhaps you can search for a vegan blog that focuses on beggining vegans and tells you about the most common pitfalls and so on. An example grocery list from the same blog. I personally did not use this blog so cannot attest to its quality, but I provide it more as an example - any good vegan blog will do :).

Since you asked this in comments - what I did when I turned vegan was.. nothing much. I was a long time vegetarian before that and I basically just switched milk for soy milk, stopped eating and buying cheese and just continued not buying eggs since I never liked them anyway. These things constituted about 90% of my non-veganism and were my main focus when I was turning vegan. The remaining 10% were non-vegan ingredients in preprocessed foods. This one does get tricky at times as milk and eggs seem to be ubiquitous in these foods at times.

The easiest way to deal with this trickiness is to check for vegan label. If you do not know how this works in your country, either look on the internet or ask a question here, although we do have some good answers here already (1, 2, 3). Also, if I remember correctly from one of your other questions, you are from India - if that is the case, this question might be of interest to you. You are in luck, as in India the labels are even there to distinguish if something is lacto-vegetarian or non-lacto-vegetarian.

If there is no label at all, you can check the ingredients list yourself. Milk and eggs are allergens and in some countries (eg. the UK, since 12/2014) they are required to be printed in bold/italic and so on. This should eliminate the most obvious culprits. Checking alergens list (if separate) is also a good idea, just in case. If a product is vegan though (and not accidentally vegan), the company is usually proud to put that on the packaging.

I do sometimes cheat my veganism when it comes to trace ingredients in products that have no alternatives (or the alternatives are beyond my means). The way I see it, my veganism is not about never eating another particle of animal product again - it is about reducing this to the possible/comfortable minimum because of the societal and economical pressures this creates that then mirror themselves in the well-being and ethical appreciation of animals. You will certainly have your own definition and your own approach to what is acceptable for you in your veganism. Don't stress it too much, focus on the big things that you can change and don't worry, some things take time to change but plant-based diet is steadily making its way into the mainstream - things will get easier over time :).

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  • right sir things always get better, but till that time seeing animals in pain hurts me. At a place humans compete for Better Food, Clothes, etc., just 10 m away, animals struggle for food and shelter. Good day. Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 16:11
  • sir I just found that sugar is not vegan. It is processed using animal bones. Commented Jan 20, 2018 at 7:33
  • @RamKeswani That depends on the type of the sugar and the manufacturing process, but yes, it is quite possible. The vegan label should take care of ensuring that it is not the case in a given product. For purchasing sugar, you might have to shop around (here is a list of sugars that are vegan, some of them might be available in your country). Commented Jan 20, 2018 at 11:54
  • sir in India there is no vegan label, only vegetarian or non-vegetarian. Cow Milk and Sugar will cause me a lot of problems. Hopefully I will try to ask companies to use vegan milk and sugar. good day. Commented Jan 20, 2018 at 15:49

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