More and more people are deciding to become vegan because of its proposed health benefits. Vegan diets claim to lower a person’s chances of heart disease and more. A vegan diet excludes all dairy, meat, and eggs, while many avoid honey, as well. The diet of a vegan consists of vegetables, fruits, grains, and more. If you’re not familiar with what a vegan can and cannot eat, you might wonder can vegans eat milk chocolate?
Vegans and chocolate
Vegans can eat chocolate, as chocolate only contains dairy if dairy products are added to it. However, vegans cannot eat regular milk chocolate, since milk is a no-no for vegans.
There are many alternative milk chocolate bars that are made using rice, nut, or soy milk instead.
More and more food manufacturers are creating products like rice milk chocolate that often taste so much like regular milk chocolate that it’s sometimes difficult to tell the difference.
Vegans and dessert
There are many dessert choices available for vegans, whether they prefer fruit, cake, cookies, or pie. Just about every grocery store offers vegan desserts in their bakery departments, and if you don’t see any vegan choices, you should inquire with store employees.
If you live near a Whole Foods Market or similar large health food market, you will have even more vegan dessert choices available to you.
Vegans and cheese
Any person who has recently gone vegan will probably tell you that one of their former favorite foods was cheese. Cheese is so creamy, addictive, and versatile that people eat it for breakfast, snacks, lunch, and dinner.
Fortunately, there are many vegan cheese alternatives that can make the loss of traditional cheese seem less of an issue.
Modern vegan cheese more closely mimics traditional cheese when it comes to taste as well as its ability to melt. In fact, there are some vegan cheeses that taste so close to regular cheese that a non-vegan might not even know the difference.
How do vegan desserts taste?
Just because a person is vegan doesn’t mean that they are willing to sacrifice taste in order to eat a “vegan” dessert. Many vegan desserts in the past tasted horrible and deterred many people from wasting their money on these products.
Fortunately, vegan desserts have come a long way when it comes to taste, and many actually taste equivalent to non-vegan choices.
Vegan desserts will always remain much denser than traditional desserts due to the absence of eggs, but the moistness and taste don’t have to disappear.
There are many specialty bakeries that only bake gluten-free and vegan desserts, including complete birthday cakes, wedding cakes, and more. To find a vegan bakery near you, simply perform an internet search.
Vegans and ice cream
Vegans have increasing amounts of ice cream choices available to them as manufacturers continue to create new dairy-free vegan flavors.
While vegans will have more choices available if they go to a grocery store as opposed to an ice cream parlor, more and more ice cream parlors are making more vegan flavors available to meet the needs of their customers. If you opt to shop at the grocery store, there are numerous vegan choices available if you go to a higher-end grocery store.
Vegan ice creams used to only be made with coconut milk, but more choices are becoming available, such as choices made with cashew milk, almond milk, and even rice milk.
The newest vegan ice cream choices are made with avocado but without a noticeable avocado taste.
This is wonderful for so many vegans, because some may have allergies or sensitivities to coconut or other nuts, making traditional vegan ice creams unavailable to them.
If you want to make your own vegan milk chocolate desserts, including vegan milk chocolate ice cream, you can buy vegan milk chocolate to make these.
Homemade vegan goodies
The sky is the limit when it comes to making homemade vegan goodies at home, enabling vegans to enjoy any type of baked good like anyone else, but without eggs, milk or butter.
Vegans use buttery-like spreads to replace butter in their recipes, they use almond, rice, or some other alternative milk to replace cow’s milk, and it’s easier than most people believe to replace eggs in most recipes.
One part flax or chia seeds and three parts water that is soaked for 5-10 minutes make a great egg replacement. However, chia or flax eggs don’t work well in every recipe, so you will have to experiment.
Summary: Can Vegans Eat Milk Chocolate?
As you can see, a vegan diet isn’t as restrictive as it used to be in the past. With more and more vegan alternatives to traditional foods becoming available, vegans don’t have to feel left out during gatherings with friends and family members.
Even pizza parlors are beginning to offer vegan pizzas, so vegans can order pizza delivery if they choose, just like non-vegans can. Again, vegans cannot eat traditional milk chocolate, but with more and more manufacturers developing chocolate bars with vegan milk replacements, vegans can eat milk chocolate as long as it’s made with non-dairy milk instead.
