Everybody loves Junk Food!

There seems to be a lot of food out there that seems to have the words Anti -Vegan written along the back in teeny, tiny writing. A lot of obvious stuff, like cream cakes, and a lot of non obvious ones, like health food bars that have honey as an ingredient. 

I was pointed to a group on Facebook by a fellow vegan friend of mine, Faye,  who has provided me with a wealth of information about making the transition first to vegetarian and then to vegan. The group she advised to me to join was The Vegan Societies' official FB page, and the thing she specified was a post requesting peoples favourite vegan eats/junk food.

Now, of course, veganism and vegetarianism are hugely political. The post was a call for suitable vegan food and there's one guy telling somebody off for listing Pringles because they're made by Proctor & Gamble, while another guy sits upon his gold plated high horse and informs everybody that the best snack food available is fruit and vegetables, brought from your local farmers market that are apparently set up right next to where I live. Nice to know. I've obviously walked right past them without seeing them for all of the four years that I've lived in Cheshunt. There is a house less than five minutes walk from me that sells honey from his own hives, but I'm boycotting honey so that's a no go.

Also, there seems to be huge debate over some of the foods listed. Apparently Oreos made in the UK use milk while the American company does not. Suddenly, a lot of the people are happy and some even rush out to buy Oreos. Except that the American company uses sugar that is processed using bone char. Oops.

This is a list of the appropriate foods I've managed to glean from the post (please note that I haven’t taken the time to write everything out and have simply copied and pasted everything, omitting opinions and changing from caps):

Condiments

Salad Cream

 Bisto original instant gravy

Henderson's Relish

Vitalite margarine.

HP Sauce.

Meals

Sainsburys frozen Vegetable Fingers

Linda McCartney Sausage Rolls.
Linda McCartney deep country pies

Realeat veggie mince

Pizza Hut bases and sauces

Linda McCartney sausages.

Tesco meatfree mince

Sainsburys own tinned spaghetti Bolognese

Dried pasta

Tesco finest garlic ciabatta

Veggie samosas

Morrison's stone baked garlic pizza,

Tesco dairy/egg free pizza base mix

Asda garlic stone baked pizza!

coop and Tesco value garlic baguettes

Tesco finest garlic bread

Morrison’s own yellow garlic bread

Waitrose cheeseless pizza

Snacks

beef & tomato pot noodles

Some walkers crisps

Haldirams Indian snack range

Lidl "Crusti croc" crisps (some only)

Sweet n sour noodles

Chow mein pot noodles

Various cheap flavoured noodle packets

Peanut butter

Chili heatwave Doritos

Pink panther wafer biscuits

Tesco value and Sainsbury’s basics tortilla chips

raw almonds

Joes dried mango slices

Butterkist micro popcorn

Doritos Spicy Sweet Chilli Flavoured Tortilla Chips

Snacks: Indian shops
- uttapam mix
- pakora mix
- bhaji mix
- idli mix
- dal vada mix
- pani puri ingredients
- samosa
- onion bhaji
- some indian sweets
- lots of cheap fresh, tinned and frozen vegetables
- cheap coriander and
- lots of spices and flours
- lots of vegan snacks (inc. Haldirams)
- some frozen vegan foods

Snacks: Arabic, Iranian and Turkish shops
- tinned Baba Ghannoush
- tinned Houmous
- multiple tinned Iranian dishes
- stuffed vine leaves
- stuffed pepper
- stuffed aubergine
- especially dark and delicious small cucumbers!
- most bread in these places is vegan. especially delicious is Lebanese flat bread - a palm oil free alternative to tortilla wraps

Cakes

Lyons treacle tart

Morrisons treacle tart

Asda iced fingers

Co-Op custard doughnuts

Asda Victoria ring

Co-Op Jam Doughnuts

Sainsburys basics large apple pie.

Tescos gluten free jam tarts
Mr Kiplings jam tarts

Mr Kiplings apple and blackcurrant pies

  

Biscuits

Bourbons,

Hob-Nobs

Lemon puffs

Oreos (imports only)

Oaties biscuits

Raspberry Ruffles

Happy shopper bourbons

Ginger nuts

Marzipan ritter sports

Jammie dodgers

Plain Chocolate HobNobs.

Tesco and Asda boxes of mini gingerbread men

Asda and Tesco value range digestive biscuits.

Morrison's value fruit shortcakes

Sweets

Jelly tots

Tutti Fruities

Starbust

Fry's chocolate cream

Co-Op packet sweets- eg fruit jellies and gums

Cherry brandy chocolates

Co Op mint & orange chocolate thins

Divine Dark Chocolate

Booja Booja truffles

Morrison's plain chocolate chips

Lindt and Tesco own dark choc (85%+)

As a disclaimer, I will quickly point out that I have no idea if any of these are actually suitable for vegans (they are ALL the opinions of other people).
Also, companies change their ingredients quite frequently and usually without making a big song and dance about it (remember when Mars started using animal rennet in its chocolate and the vegetarians were up in arms to discover their formerly veggie friendly treat had been taken away from them - before a lot of them had even realised!)

In the words of Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin (Skinny Bitch): Always read the ingredients, because you never know how these companies will cut corners to save and make money!