Are you looking for a list of vegan cereal options? Or perhaps you’ve got questions about whether your favorite brands contain animal products?
You’ve come to the right place.
This guide contains:
- A comprehensive veg-friendly cereal list sorted by type.
- The vegan status of some of the most popular brands.
- Most common non-vegan ingredients to look for when you’re shopping.
But before you get started, I wanted to make you aware of something:
Many people who try to go vegan fail and go back to eating animal products.
That’s why you must do it in a sustainable and health-promoting way.
If you don’t think you are going vegan completely figured out yet, I highly recommend checking out the Complete Vegan Starter kit today.
How We Made This Vegan Cereals List
We classified these cereals as vegan if they didn’t contain any common animal products found in breakfast items.
The two most common ingredients that we kept an eye out for were gelatin and honey. If the products didn’t have those or other labeled animal products (meat, dairy, eggs, fish, etc.), they could have made it to the list.
We didn’t consider any trace ingredients (such as vitamin fortifications) because we don’t think vegans should stress about such things.
Especially new vegans.
Many top-level vegan organizations agree with this assessment.
But if you are concerned about extremely small unlabeled animal products, you can choose to avoid Vitamin D3 fortification in these products because it can come from lanolin (although there are plant-based sources like lichen). Read the label on your product and see if it has any vitamin fortifications. If you want to avoid D3 because of the possibility of it being animal-derived, it’s your choice.
Additionally, we didn’t consider if any added sugar in these products could have been processed with bone char because it would be near impossible to tell.
However, we did include an asterisk (*) next to all organic products on this list. Organic cane sugar is never processed with bone char.
Vegan Cereals made with whole foods and no added sugar are the best options.
If you’re vegan for animal welfare, then stressing about either of these things (vitamin fortification or sugar) is going to be counterproductive.
If you’re vegan for strictly health reasons – you’re probably going to want to choose one of the single-ingredient products anyway.
Please Note: Not everything on this list is particularly health-promoting. Not that this would come as a surprise to many, but we just wanted to do a little disclaimer. We like to endorse a whole-foods plant-based diet for human health.
As a final note: all ingredient statements have the possibility of changing over time. Please double-check the box before purchasing it.
List of Vegan Cereals By Type
Below we’ve categorized these items by their most common properties so you can find what you’re looking for.
If it has an asterisks (*) next to it, that means its organic – so you don’t have to worry about potential non-vegan trace ingredients, although we encourage people not to worry about it anyway.
Single Ingredient Cereals
The main brand that we could find that makes single-ingredient options is Arrowhead Mills. This brand puffs all sorts of grains, including some ancient ones, resulting in some really delicious, satisfying, and nutrient-dense options.
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- This puffed wheat plant-based cereal has a fair amount of micronutrients and 2 grams of fiber per 60 calories.
Healthy Cereal Options
While the single ingredient options also fall into the more healthy category, they can be boring. We made this second list of healthy products to show some less-bland but still nutrient-dense options that you can enjoy right out of the box.
Check out this vegan starter kit
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- Uncle Sam’s cereal is an alternative option that’s made with whole plant food ingredients and no added sugar.
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- It’s a fancy word for something that’s not all that unusual, a bunch of rolled oats and grains made into cereal, typically with very little added sugar.
Popular Puffed Cereal Options
These puffed picks are known for their crispy properties. The perfect example of a crispy cereal is none other than Rice Krispies.
- Kashi 7 Whole Grain Puffs Cereal
- This cereal by Kashi actually contains seven whole grains and isn’t sweetened at all.
- **Envirokids Organic Peanut Butter Panda Puffs
- Think of this as the organic hybrid between Reese’s Puffs and Kix.
- **Envirokids Organic Chocolate Koala Crisps
- In a nutshell, this cereal is chocolate Rice Krispies.
- **Barbaras Organic Brown Rice Cereal
- If you’ve ever had the Whole Foods Brown Rice Crisps, they are quite similar to these.
Any form of store-bought generic puffed rice options likely has the same type of ingredients, so those are probably a safe bet as well!
O-Shaped Cereals
There’s something about O-shaped cereals that everyone loves. It could be because of Cheerio-nostalgia or because they are the perfect shape to get a balance of nut milk and cereal in one bite.
There are plenty of options for vegans, and this list is just the most popular ones we found online.
Corn Based Cereals
Corn-based cereals have a certain crunch and earthiness that stand out from the typical wheat or rice-based options.
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- While they’re only made with three ingredients, none of which are artificial colors, this cereal is purple! That’s because it’s made with purple corn.
Super Sweet and Indulgent
Don’t worry, breakfast junkies, we’ve got your back. We’ve made this list for those super-indulgent options. The ones that you probably have fond childhood memories of.
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- Finding vegan chocolate chip cookies can be kind of difficult, but Cookie Crisp cereal seems to be accidentally cruelty-free.
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- These corn balls flavored with peanut butter obviously aren’t health-promoting, but they bring a nostalgic peanut crunch for anyone who grew up in the 90’s.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Cocoa Pebbles Vegan?
Based on the latest nutrition facts from Post Brands, it seems that Cocoa Krispies are vegan. But although the ingredients don’t list any animal products, this cereal is mainly just sugar and hydrogenated oil.
We don’t recommend you eat too much of it!
Is Life Cereal Vegan?
Yes! According to Quaker’s website, Life Cereal and Cinnamon Life are vegan. They did contain some artificial colors, though, which we found interesting.
It’s not like the cereal contains any wacky colors like fruit loops!
Is Cinnamon Toast Crunch Vegan?
We couldn’t find any labeled animal products in Cinnamon Toast Crunch – so yes, it is vegan. We also found this awesome vegan homemade recipe for this cereal which you may want to check out.
What Are the Most Common Non-Vegan Ingredients in Cereals?
During our research, we identified the most common offending ingredients in cereal as the following:
- Honey (controversial in the vegan world- but we aren’t listing any cereals with honey here) – this is probably the most common
- Milk Products
- Marshmallows (containing gelatin)
- The gelatin on its own (such as in Frosted Mini Wheats)
- D3 (possibly), but see above “How We Made This List” for our take on why you shouldn’t care.
They’re most likely vegan if the ingredient statement doesn’t contain anything on the list above.
We haven’t seen any cereals with eggs during our research, so it is unlikely that you’ll stumble upon such a thing.
Hey, I’m Joey. I’ve been cooking since I was a little kid and love everything about it. You can find my writing about food, kitchen appliances (such as blenders) and much more. Thanks for stopping by!
Want to take all of the guess-work around going vegan?
Click here to check out the Vegan Starter Kit.
This is a blatant lie when Vitamin D3 is not vegan.
Hi Collin. We actually address this early on in the article. We take the perspective that if it’s not a BLATANTLY LABELED animal product, then it does more harm than good for new vegans to stress about such things.
We make people aware that they can check for this stuff and to get unfortified cereals if they want.
For those just joining the lifestyle, it can already be confusing and overwhelming.
The goal is to reduce animal cruelty as much as PRACTICALLY POSSIBLE and not to achieve perfection.
Personally, I’d recommend sticking to whole plant foods rather than any of these cereals which the blog says ad-naseum.
But this doesn’t say anything about vitamin d3, which most of these cereals contain.
We did address this early on in the article. Thanks for reading.
Hello! I’m curious to know how these products were confirmed vegan. I was under the impression that many of these cereals were not vegan because they were fortified with non-plant based vitamin D. Will you clarify?
Thank you kindly.
Hi Mel,
This was clarified at the beginning of the article. We don’t consider trace ingredients or any non-blatantly labeled animal products. We also say that if you’re concerned about vitamin fortifications you can avoid these cereals.
“We didn’t consider any trace ingredients (such as vitamin fortifications) because we don’t think its important for vegans to stress about such things. Especially new vegans.
Many top-level vegan organizations agree with this assessment.”
In other words, avoiding things for that reason does virtually nothing to stop animal cruelty. Which is why most people don’t stress over it.
After all, even the grains that are harvested/farmed cause animal suffering to some degree. This argument doesn’t hold up when carnists use it to justify eating animals (because animals have to eat plants), but the point is that EVERYTHING causes some harm. Veganism isn’t about 100% cruelty reduction. It’s just doing it as much as possible.
As more people choose to avoid labeled animal products and actual animal products, these extremely small micro-trace ingredients will fall off the map because they’re byproducts of the industry.
Hope that clarifies things.
Again – we made people aware and said they can avoid it if they want.
It only takes a minute to actually call the companies and ask about the D3 to confirm if it’s vegan or not. I’ve done so, and yes, it IS animal derived, and therefore not vegan. Where it is only listed as vitamin D, it can be either D2 or D3, depending on what form was cheaper at the time of manufacturing, but it’s usually animal derived D3. Facts and research matter.
Non-animal derived D3 is mainly used in the production of vegan vitamins and supplements. I have yet to see it actually used in a food product.
Hi Callie, that’s why we made people aware to avoid it if they want. Again, we don’t think its a requirement for being “vegan” to research things at that level (most activism organizations don’t either). 97% of people aren’t even willing to give up labeled animal products.