Are Animal Crackers Vegan? Are There Real Animals Inside?

Are animal crackers vegan?

Animal Crackers are only shaped like animals. Vegans require just as much caution for them as with any other category of biscuits. As is expected, some vegans specifically assume and worry about the ingredients of these crackers and others don’t understand why Animal Crackers get such special attention. So once and for all, are Animal Crackers vegan?

Yes, most brands manufacture completely vegan Animal Crackers. As a precaution, one should always brush through the ingredients before buying ready-made products. But most varieties of Animal Crackers do not contain meat, poultry, or dairy based constituents. If this standard marks a product vegan for you, they are all yours to take.

We’ll take you through the relative vegan-ness of different available brands of Animal Crackers in America so you can choose the one that suits you best.

We’ll make sure you don’t stand all confused in the supermarket aisle

We have researched the four most popular brands of Animal Crackers in America. There is Stauffer’s, Trader Joe’s, Barnum’s, Kirkland’s, Nature’s Promise, and Earth Fare, along with additional information about the chocolate and frosted variables.

animal crackers

The classic Stauffer’s Animal Crackers

These are undoubtedly the most delicious Animal Crackers in our country. Apart from being irresistible and the right amount of crunchy, they are also free from eggs and dairy based ingredients.

There are a few ingredients in these crackers that will raise quite a number of eyebrows. These include Niacin and Riboflavin in enriched flour, processed sugar, and high fructose corn syrup. Although controversial, these constituents are unacceptable to many vegans. We will discuss them ahead in detail. 

If you are not a prudent vegan, Stauffer’s Animal Crackers are the perfect snack for you or your kids. 

What about the iced variety of Stauffer’s Animal Crackers?

You have good news. There are no animal based products in the iced Stauffer’s Animal Crackers. There is no dairy, no eggs, no animal derivatives whatsoever. You’d like to consider that a few iced food items offer this promise. We told you. It’s good news. 

Apart from the controversial ingredients present in the regular Stauffer’s crackers as well, there are no problematic additives you need to worry about. 

What is the deal with the chocolate variety of Animal Crackers offered by Stauffer’s?

Vegans, the people at Stauffer’s don’t want to disappoint you at all. Their chocolate variety of Animal Crackers are just as vegan as all others. You expect manufacturers to use dairy products in chocolate based food items, as it has always been. But Stauffer’s uses alkali processed cocoa instead of regular milk chocolate. There you go!

The dependable organic Trader Joe’s Animal Crackers

This brand promises you all organic and vegan ingredients. Consider yourself lucky because a few brands actually ever do this and fewer of them choose to make completely organic Animal Crackers! 

We bet you’ll go gaga over the ingredient list featuring organic wheat flour, organic sunflower oil, organic cane sugar (wow!), organic lemon flavour, every ingredient is literally organic. 

Dear vegan, these Animal Crackers have been made just for you.

The much debated Barnum’s Animal Crackers

Popularly considered vegan, Barnum’s Animal Crackers were in the middle of a controversy a few years ago for featuring illustrations of caged animals on their packaging. Many people criticized such a representation as it seemed to encourage animal cruelty. 

Many vegans are already of the view that eatables like Animal Crackers seem synonymous with the idea of animal exploitation. Although we don’t entirely agree with the concept that eating animal shaped cookies would develop hatred for animals in children. It was but unfortunate and thoughtless on the part of the company to show animals as fierce and worthy of being punished in a cage, that too upon a packet of Animal Crackers!

After strong criticism and debate, Barnum’s replied by replacing the original illustration with one that showed animals free in a natural environment. 

Coming on to the ingredients of their Animal Crackers, they can be easily considered vegan except for a few controversial ingredients. Barnum’s Animal Crackers contain unbleached enriched flour containing Niacin and Riboflavin, and natural and artificial flavours.

Another promise of organic ingredients, Kirkland Animal Crackers

This brand offers completely vegan Animal Crackers. All the ingredients are organic and cruelty-free. Even the cane sugar used in these biscuits is organic. More warmth and comfort is offered by the organic oils, organic flour, organic vanilla extract, and the organic spices used in this product. 

Just like Trader Joe’s Animal Crackers, Kirkland Animal Crackers are entirely vegan and organic. 

Keebler’s also offers a frosted range of Animal Crackers, are they organic and vegan as well?

You would expect them to be vegan and organic. Unfortunately, two non-vegan ingredients are constituents of Keebler’s Frosted cookies. They are whey and confectioner’s glaze.

Whey is derived from dairy milk and confectioner’s glaze is obtained from an insect. Both are animal based ingredients that vegans definitely avoid. The other constituents of these biscuits are also not organic like the original unfrosted and organic Keebler’s. 

There are additional ingredients that may be problematic for some vegans. These include processed sugar, flour enriched with Niacin and Riboflavin, palm oil, carnauba wax, high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors like Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1, Blue 2 Lake, Yellow 6, and Yellow 6 Lake.

It is entirely impossible for vegans to consider eating this variety. 

Nature’s Promise Animal Crackers have made a promise indeed 

All organic ingredients are used in making these chocolaty, delicious, and trustworthy vegan range of Animal Crackers. The flour, the sugar, the oils, the syrups, the salts are all completely organic and reliable. 

This product comes with a warning label that says it may contain milk, eggs, and coconut. Now, because so much effort has been put in making this product organic and vegan, this warning only implies that the processing equipment used in manufacturing this product may have traces of the previously processed non-vegan food items. 

This is meant to be a warning for people allergic to milk, eggs, and coconut rather than a reference to its non-vegan nature. 

Nature’s Promise Animal Crackers are completely organic and vegan.

Earth Fare Vegan Animal Crackers

You can totally trust this brand of Animal Crackers. The ingredient list is set to make you joyous with ‘organic’ written in front of literally everything. 

The cane juice, the canola and sunflower oils, vanilla extract, all things are organic. And the crackers are completely vegan!

There’s some deal with controversial ingredients in apparently vegan food items

Many strict vegans will not consider a food product vegan if it contains any of the ingredients considered controversial in the vegan community. Such ingredients are problematic because it is not definitely known whether they are derived from an animal source or not. 

Oftentimes, these ingredients are either derived synthetically or from plants but their adverse impact on animals and the environment places them under a distinct category. Such substances are considered ethically non-vegan. One concrete example of ethically non-vegan substances is artificial coloring agents and palm oil. 

Artificial Colors

These substances are often obtained from animal based sources if not produced synthetically. The major problem with artificial colors is owed to their rampant need of testing on animals. Many animals are needlessly killed in order to prove the safety of these products in humans. 

Processed Sugar

A large proportion of factories in America use bone char in order to filter cane sugar and render it the peculiar shiny white coloration. Bone char, true to its name, is produced by burning animal bones at high temperatures. Although bone char isn’t passed into the finally processed sugar, vegans consider the production process of such sugar unethical.

High Fructose Corn Syrup

This product is not as vegan as we expect it to be, at least by some standards. The corn used for making corn syrup is often genetically modified for resistance to pests. Many vegans consider this product unsuitable.

Niacin and Riboflavin enriched flour 

It is entirely possible to make Niacin synthetically. But it is at times derived from dairy and egg based sources. The same is true for Riboflavin. Prudent vegans tend to avoid food products which have the possibility of an animal based source.

Palm Oil

Palm oil is undoubtedly obtained from plants. But the impact of such large scale capitalist plantations has been devastating for our planet. Even at this very moment, thousands of acres of rainforests are being cleared to make space for palm plantations. 

This has resulted in the loss of habitat for a number of plant and animal species many of which are now endangered. Such rampant unsustainable agriculture has significantly contributed to the Earth’s global warming. 

Now that we know so much about them, are Animal Crackers vegan? 

They obviously are! Most popular brands of Animal Crackers are absolutely vegan. This includes Stauffer’s, Trader Joe’s, Barnum’s, Keebler’s, Nature’s Promise, and Earth Fare Animal Crackers. The original varieties of Trader Joe’s and Kebbler’s are in fact completely organic.

Never worry about the shapes. The way kidney beans do not contain any animal’s kidneys, and the way walnuts don’t have any ingredients known as brains, Animal Crackers don’t have any animal based ingredients.

Joe became a vegan after watching Cowspiracy. He always knew something was off with the way we consume animal products, but watching the documentary made him realized how bad it actually is. Joe is now making sure that every product he buys is 100% vegan!