Are Skittles Vegan-Friendly?

With the vegan lifestyle becoming more and more popular each year, we're seeing the market for vegan foods expand. According to the Good Food Institute, plant-based food sales, in particular, have grown by more than 54% since 2018. In comparison, that's three times more than the growth rate of all other foods.

Though these numbers seem high, consider all the plant-based and vegan food products now available at both grocery stores and restaurants. Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, for instance, offer various meat substitutes, while Silk sells plant-based milk that might convert even die-hard dairy lovers.

It's great that so many companies are either expanding or just now popping up to produce plant-based or vegan products, but some of our favorite products might just already be vegan-friendly. Per Spoon University, snacks like Oreos, Teddy Grahams, and Nutter Butters are all surprisingly vegan-friendly. As for candy, the classic Skittles might also be vegan-friendly. 

If you've been missing your favorite candies since transitioning to a vegan lifestyle, worry not; Skittles might actually be vegan-friendly. Although Skittles originally contained gelatin, which is traditionally made with animal products, the company changed its recipe in 2009 (via Delish).

Because the Skittles recipe no longer uses gelatin, the candies are technically vegan-friendly. Instead, the recipe uses sugar, citric acid, corn starch, sodium citrate, and carnauba wax, says Healthline, among other non-animal-derived ingredients.

However, it's worth noting the practices behind Skittles' production. According to HuffPost, many sugars are actually bleached with animal bone char, and even though the refined product does not contain any bone particles, this contact may be off-putting for some people. For this reason, some sugars aren't considered vegan, and many vegans choose to avoid those and Skittles altogether.

To be on the safe side, Pure Healthy Living recommends purchasing only products that are certified vegan and not just labeled "vegan-friendly." While Skittles may be deemed vegan-friendly, they're not exactly vegan.