Are Oreos Vegan?

Who doesn’t love Oreos? Delicious cream wedged between two crunchy and chocolaty wafers; only a few other things in the world are as delicious as an Oreo. Its never-ending flavors make it the first choice among the masses. Most of us have grown up feasting on the delectable cookie and doesn’t seem to be having enough of it anytime soon.

One question that has troubled many people who follow a very stringent culinary lifestyle is “are Oreos vegan?” If you are a vegan, then you must have wondered while devouring these delicious cookies what exactly is the silky white cream made of or if Oreo biscuits are vegetarian. Find the answer to your questions below.

Before we get right to the answer, first, let’s take a look at the ingredients that go into making these delicious cookies. Although there are several varieties of Oreos, the traditional flavor is made of sugar, unbleached enriched flour, palm and/or canola oil, high fructose corn syrup, cocoa processed with alkali, leavening, cornstarch, artificial vanillin, salt, soy lecithin and chocolate.

As you can see, none of the products or items listed here suggests that Oreos are not vegan. But, what about sugar?! Although refined sugars do not contain any animal product, and are technically vegan, some forms of sugar are refined using animal bone char, which works as a filter and removes impurities. However, if this criterion is selected to declare products non-vegan, nothing much would be left for the vegans to consume. So, Oreos would probably not be considered vegan by this definition, but it is a very strict one and not believed by many.

However, there’s one thing that makes Oreos a little less vegan than most of us have imagined it to be. The problem for vegans lies in the fact that Oreos have “cross contact” milk. What this means is that either the cookies or the equipment employed to make them could have come in contact with tiny amounts of milk. Though this cross contact does not necessarily imply that the cookies certainly have traces of milk, it makes it impossible to guarantee otherwise.