Pringles are a popular American brand of potato chips. Originally under the selection of Proctor & Gamble, the famous stackable snack is currently offered by Kellogg’s. The unique shape of Pringles stems from early complaints of how chips were easily broken and stale inside of plastic bags. After the soaring success of Pringles across Indiana in 1968, Pringles began distributing across the country in less than a decade. In 1991, Pringles began making its way across the globe.
The Original flavor of Pringles is vegan as it does not include any animal products or derivative in its ingredients list nor in its production. However, other flavors contain ingredients that might concern some vegans. Other flavors include ingredients that are problematic or outright non-vegan. The best way to determine whether a flavor of Pringles is vegan is to check the ingredients list and to become familiar with ingredients to look out for.
As with all food products, the most important factor for vegans to consider is the ingredients used in their production. The Original flavor Pringles is vegan as it does not involve any animal products. However, Pringles has a wide selection of flavors to choose from and the other flavors have ingredients that might concern vegans.
Firstly, there are some ingredients used in other Pringles flavors that are gray area ingredients. This simply means that these ingredients don't have exact sourcing procedures or modes/mechanism of creation. Examples of such ingredients include natural flavors and sugar.
Secondly, some ingredients used in the other flavors are non-vegan as they are directly derived from animal sources. Examples of such ingredients include dairy products such as cheese and milk.
The best way vegans can avoid accidentally consuming food products that would contain non-vegan or problematic ingredients would be to check the ingredients list because while one flavor of Pringles might be suitable for their diets, other flavors might not.
The list of ingredients of the Pringles Original includes (1): dried potatoes, vegetable oil (corn, cottonseed, high oleic soybean, and/or sunflower oil), degerminated yellow corn flour, cornstarch, rice flour, maltodextrin, mono- and diglycerides, salt, wheat starch.
While the ingredients list of the Original flavor Pringles does not contain any animal product, Pringles still offers a wide selection of other flavors for consumers to choose from that are made with different ingredients. Furthermore, there are some flavors that are only available in other countries. The region-specific flavors include Pumpkin Pie Spice in the US, Rosemary and Olive Oil in France, Soft-Shell Crab in Singapore, Keema Curry in Japan, Steak and Onion Pie in the UK, and many more.
For this article, the ingredients that will be listed will be from the Favorites selection from the Pringles US website (2). Aside from the Original, these flavors include BBQ, Cheddar Cheese, Cheddar and Sour Cream, Jalapeño, Pizza, Sour Cream and Onion, Ranch, Salt and Vinegar, Screamin’ Dill Pickle, Parmesan and Roasted Garlic, Rotisserie Chicken, Honey Mustard, Buffalo Ranch, and Memphis BBQ.
First, the non-vegan ingredients will be discussed, followed by the gray area ingredients.
All flavors under the Favorites selection contain a wide variety of dairy products such as milk, whey, cheddar cheese, blue cheese, buttermilk, butter, nonfat milk, sour cream, cream, lactose, and parmesan cheese.
Dairy products are strictly non-vegan as they require the use of cow’s milk. In the vegan community, milk is especially avoided because the milk industry is believed to be highly unethical. The milk industry intentionally impregnates cows to produce milk. They also separate the offspring from the mothers to maximize the milk-yield.
The Pringles flavors from the Favorites selection that contain this ingredient include: BBQ, Cheddar Cheese, Cheddar and Sour Cream, Jalapeño, Pizza, Sour Cream and Onion, Ranch, Salt and Vinegar, Screamin’ Dill Pickle, Parmesan and Roasted Garlic, Rotisserie Chicken, Honey Mustard, Buffalo Ranch, and Memphis BBQ.
Honey is a natural sweetener and a common alternative to sugar in products that are marketed to be healthier and more organic.
However, honey is not vegan because it is derived from bees. Rearing honeybees for honey production is considered harmful for the bees and a form of exploitation as the honey they produce is intended for their own colony (3). Furthermore, keeping honeybees is considered to be environmentally irresponsible since honeybees will then compete with the native bee species for resources.
Under the Favorites selection, only one flavor contains honey: Honey Mustard.
Even though companies are required to list their ingredients on their products, the flavor profiles of the products themselves are difficult to recreate because they attribute their flavor profiles to "natural flavors."
Natural flavors is blanket term that the FDA allows companies to use to protect their proprietary blend of natural ingredients that primarily provide flavor. However, the problem with natural flavors for vegans is the vague definition (4). The FDA defines natural flavors as:
“The essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.”
FDA.gov
Due to this umbrella definition that can encompass both plant- and animal-derived products, natural flavors remain as a gray area ingredient because it is difficult to determine whether a product that contains this ingredient is completely vegan or not.
The Pringles flavors from the Favorites selection that contain this ingredient include: BBQ, Cheddar Cheese, Cheddar and Sour Cream, Jalapeño, Pizza, Sour Cream and Onion, Ranch, Salt and Vinegar, Screamin’ Dill Pickle, Parmesan and Roasted Garlic, Rotisserie Chicken, Honey Mustard, Buffalo Ranch, and Memphis BBQ.
Sugar, also known as sucrose, is one of the most common sweeteners used in the food industry. While sugar is primarily acquired from plant sources such as sugarcane and sugar beets, the ingredient can quickly become non-vegan depending on how it is produced/refined (5).
Sugar companies often further refine their products to make them more appealing to consumers. Such a step that is included in refinement process is filtration. Different companies can use different materials for filtration such as granulated carbon. However, some companies use bone char – the charred bones of different animals. Thus, sugar filtered through bone char can no longer be considered vegan since an animal product was involved in its production.
The Pringles flavors from the Favorites selection that contain this ingredient include: BBQ, Cheddar Cheese, Cheddar and Sour Cream, Jalapeño, Pizza, Sour Cream and Onion, Ranch, Parmesan and Roasted Garlic, Rotisserie Chicken, Honey Mustard, Buffalo Ranch, and Memphis BBQ.
Color is an important part of the eating experience and food manufacturers control the color of their food using coloring agents. Some food products can naturally have appealing colors through the use of their conventional ingredients. However, some food products have to be intentionally manipulated with food coloring agents to achieve a desired aesthetic.
Vegans find artificial coloring agents especially problematic. These synthetic dyes do not contain any animal product or derivative. In fact, they can be perfectly suitable for dietary vegans. However, the problem with artificial coloring agents is that they undergo numerous safety tests that use animal models.
Animal testing is against the beliefs of ethical vegans since these studies intentionally exploit and harm animals. Animal testing might have been necessary before for safety evaluations, but many believe that the use of animal models for safety testing is no longer necessary due to the availability of new methods such as the use of cell models and in silico studies (i.e., the use of computer models and algorithms).
The Pringles flavors from the Favorites selection that contain these ingredients include: Cheddar and Sour Cream, Pizza, and Memphis BBQ.
Specifically, these Pringles flavors include Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Red 40, and Blue 1. Collectively, these dyes have been tested on countless rats, mice, rabbits, pigs, cats, guinea pigs, miniature pigs, hamsters, and dogs (6, 7, 8, 9).
References
4. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/
