A lot of vegan drinks have come into light recently. More and more people are getting into the vegan community every day. With this large turnout, coca-cola thought it’s a good idea to make vegan power drinks.
Thus, the birth of Powerade. This brings us to an important question that arises with the mention of this drink, is Powerade vegan? To be able to judge if it’s vegan or not, we need to know what ingredients it contains.
Ingredients in Powerade
Before getting to know the flavors Powerade offers, let’s take a look at the main ingredients:
- Water
- Corn syrup
- Citric acid
- Magnesium chloride
- Calcium chloride
- Natural flavors
- Artificial colors
- Monopotassium phosphate
- Modified food starch
- Calcium disodium EDTA
- Sucrose acetate isobutyrate
- Vitamins B3, B6, and B12
As a vegan, it could be hard to determine which products are vegan and which aren’t. For most ingredients, it’s a bit hard to know exactly where they come from.
There are no definitive and obvious ingredients from animals (like milk, eggs, etc..). Still, there’s a possibility that some ingredients might be made from animal parts or tested on animals.
What are the Ingredients You Should Look Out for in Powerade?
Being vegan depends on what you believe you should drink or eat and what you shouldn’t. So there’s really no way to determine how well this would work for everyone.
With that being said, most vegans are fine with drinking Powerade. There are some ingredients that may be a little detouring.
Natural flavors
The term natural flavors could be very misleading at times. Just because the flavor is natural, doesn’t mean that it’s vegan. In fact, natural flavors are made from animal fats most of the time. This is according to the official US Code of federal regulations definition of natural flavors.
Glycerol Ester of Wood Rosin
Most of the time this is nothing to worry about, however, it’s not always the case. The glycerine used to make the Glycerol Ester of Wood Rosin could be sometimes derived from animal fats.
Niacinamide (B3)
Niacinamide is a form of vitamin B3, one of only two. It’s usually vegan but sometimes it could be made with animal parts. On a side note, it’s really great for your skin.
Artificial Colors
Not only are artificial colors made out of animal parts sometimes, but it’s also tested on animals. They’re tested on animals regularly because it may have adverse health effects. Most, if not all of Powerade’s drinks contain food coloring.
Sucralose
This is an artificial sweetener which is basically refined sugar. When refining sugar, some manufacturers use bone char. This makes the sucralose non-vegan.
What’s more, it is tested on animals. These are the two main reasons sucralose may not be considered a vegan ingredient.
Which Flavors are Considered Vegan?
Surely not all of Powerade’s flavors are the same. Some flavors have more questionable ingredients than others. Although most people tend to consider this drink vegan, some strict vegans don’t. For them, the flavors with less of those ingredients are a safer choice.
Flavors With Low Amount of Questionable Ingredients
Red (fruit punch) and purple (berry) have few of these ingredients. Although, It doesn’t mean that they’re completely devoid of artificial sweeteners and such.
Flavors With Moderate Amount
These flavors are blue (mountain Blast) and green (melon). melon is also made with coconut water.
Flavors With a Relatively High Amount
They are yellow (lemon-lime) and Orange (Gold rush) which is an orange drink. The amount of these ingredients in those two flavors aren’t too high that we would consider them strictly not vegan. However, compared to the other two flavors, they have far more of these ingredients.
What’s Powerade Zero?
Powerade zero is just like regular Powerade but without any sugar. So to compensate for the sugar, more artificial sweeteners are added to not throw the drink’s taste off-balance. By doing so, sucralose is increased, which is an artificial sweetener that was heavily tested on animals.
Some vegans would stay away from Powerade zero because they don’t want to have to do with anything that could’ve harmed animals in any way. Other vegans will accept that fact. Neither of them is wrong, there’s no right way to be vegan.
What Else Does Powerade Contain?
The average 100 ML of Powerade contains 5.8g of carbohydrates, 5.8g of sugar, and 28 mg of sodium. It contains zero fat, protein, and fiber. That brings us to an important point. Is Powerade healthy?
Is It Healthy?
Just because something is vegan doesn’t mean that it’s healthy. Powerade doesn’t contain necessary nutrients like proteins, fats, and fibers.
Thus, it’s not considered a whole meal. Not to mention that it’s packed with sugars and other artificial additives that do no good to the body.
Now as we mentioned, Powerade Zero doesn’t contain these amounts of sugar like regular Powerade. Some people actually recommend drinking regular Powerade because it contains less artificial ingredients.
It’s up to you to decide. Regular Powerade has less artificial ingredients but is higher in calories. It’s all about priorities really.
What You Could Do Instead
If you’re not comfortable with drinking Powerade or other alternatives, you could make your own drinks at home. Simply mix your favorite fruits and vegetables together in a tasty blend and modify them according to your taste. Fruits could be easily juiced using blenders and other methods.
If you want to try out juicing vegetables and adding new flavors into your diet. You could go ahead and buy a juicer.
The natural elements of your juice will benefit you more than any other artificial power drink would. Although, your drinks will still lack fibers because you break them down.
If you don’t want to keep changing your power drink every time you make it, you could follow some recipes other people recommend. Or you could come up with your own recipe through experimentation.
Final Thoughts
Powerade is a great power drink choice for vegans who are looking for tasty, vegan power drinks. Whether you’re just starting out or have been a vegan for a long time, Powerade may be a good option for you.
To include it in your diet or not is up to you. It just depends on how much you think that this drink is vegan. Either way, it’s definitely a good idea to give this tasty drink a try!