It’s time now to look at the vegan-friendliness of Snapple, a popular brand of tea that puts out other cold beverages like juice, lemonade, and water. The stuff can be found pretty much anywhere, from supermarkets to gas stations, so a lot of vegans encounter it regularly and want to know if it is suitable for 100% plant-based diets.
Is it vegan? All Snapple tea beverages are generally considered vegan. As for the juice, there are three possible exceptions, depending on one’s standards: Watermelon Lemonade, Black Cherry Lemonade, and Strawberry Pineapple Lemonade. These contain clarified juices. Note that not all clarified juice is non-vegan.
Keep in mind that not all vegans avoid drinks that have undergone fining for clarification. For example, many vegans consume wine and other commonly clarified alcoholic beverages.
And, as mentioned, not all fining agents used to clarify drinks are of animal origin. For example, activated charcoal can be used. It just depends on the manufacturer.
Then, of course, we have other ingredients that some vegans like to avoid but don’t necessarily render a product non-vegan.
This will be a comprehensive look at the various flavors offered by Snapple in both tea and juice form.
Snapple Tea
Is Snapple Takes 2 to Mango Vegan?
Snapple Takes 2 to Mango is considered vegan. The ingredients panel simply lists filtered water, tea, sugar, citric acid, tea, and natural flavors.1 The diet version is also vegan-friendly with only the addition of a few vegan-friendly additives.
Specifically, the diet version lists filtered water, tea, citric acid, potassium citrate, acesulfame potassium, sucralose, and natural flavors.2
So, the main difference is that the diet version contains artificial sweeteners like sucralose, aka Splenda.
A Note on Sugar
Above it was mentioned that Snapple beverages do contain ingredients that some in the community like to avoid. All non-diet Snapple beverages are going to contain sugar. While white sugar is typically processed with bone char, at least in the US, most in the community don’t view processed sugar as off-limits.
But, if you want to avoid white sugar and processed foods containing it, you’ll definitely want to stick to products containing organic sugar, which is never processed with bone char.
Just know that consuming products containing bone char isn’t considered non-vegan by most standards.
Is Snapple Green Tea Vegan?
Snapple Green Tea (regular and diet) is vegan. The regular version simply contains filtered water, green tea, sugar, natural flavors, fruit extracts, and citric acid.3 The diet version contains sucralose instead of sugar and a few extra additives.
Specifically, Snapple Diet Green Tea contains filtered water, green tea, ascorbic acid (vitamin c), citric acid, sucralose, natural flavors, and acesulfame potassium.4
If you’re wondering about acesulfame potassium, it is an artificial sweetener that’s common in diet food products. The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG) unequivocally lists the ingredient as vegan. 5
Is Snapple Peach Tea Vegan?
Snapple Peach Tea, both regular and diet, is considered vegan. It contains filtered water, tea, sugar, citric acid, and natural flavors.6 The diet version has a few extra ingredients like potassium citrate and artificial sweeteners, but all are vegan-friendly.
Extra ingredients for the diet version include aspartame, potassium citrate, and malic acid.7
Aspartame is another common artificial sweetener found in diet products. It is a rather controversial ingredient as far as its health effects. While it can be unhealthy in large doses, it is considered vegan-friendly.5
Is Snapple Lemon Tea Vegan?
Snapple Lemon Tea, both regular and diet, is vegan. While the two versions vary by a few ingredients, both the regular and diet are largely made up of filtered water, tea, sugar, citric acid, and natural flavors, all of which are vegan-friendly.8,9
Extra ingredients In Snapple Diet Lemon Tea include aspartame and potassium citrate.9
You may have noticed that the term, “natural flavors” keeps popping up in the ingredients so far. While natural flavors can be non-vegan, those used in tea and fruit-flavored beverages would be expected to be of plant origin.
It would be one thing if we were analyzing something flavored to resemble meat or cheese—surprisingly, not all such products are non-vegan. But, Snapple puts out fruit and veggie flavored products so it’s safe to assume any natural flavors would be derived from plant-based sources.
Is Snapple Raspberry Tea Vegan?
Snapple Raspberry Tea is considered vegan. This goes for both the regular and diet versions. Ingredients for the regular version include filtered water, tea, citric acid, sugar, and natural flavors. The formulation for the diet version is slightly different, but all ingredients are vegan-friendly.10
Specifically, Snapple Diet Raspberry Tea contains filtered water, tea, citric and malic acids, aspartame, potassium citrate, and natural flavors.11
Malic acid is a natural organic acid found in fruits so it is 100% vegan-friendly.
Snapple Juice
For whatever reason, there doesn’t seem to be a diet version for many of the juices.
Is Snapple Lemonade Vegan?
Snapple Lemonade is considered vegan. It contains filtered water, sugar, lemon juice concentrate, citric and ascorbic acids, acacia gum, salt, natural flavors, soy lecithin, and beta carotene (color), all of which are vegan-friendly.12
Beta carotene is a natural pigment found in plants. It’s essentially a plant source of vitamin A, though it’s not the actual vitamin, but a precursor. Anyway, it’s always derived from plants, and thus it’s always vegan-friendly.
Is Snapple Pink Lemonade Vegan?
Snapple Pink Lemonade, like the original (yellow) lemonade, is considered vegan. It contains vegan-friendly ingredients including filtered water, lemon juice concentrate, other fruit and veggie juice concentrates, citric acid, sugar, acacia gum, salt, natural flavors, and soy lecithin.13
Sometimes lecithin, a common additive, catches the eye of those scanning labels for vegan-friendliness. While it’s true that lecithin is abundant in egg yolk, commercially it tends to be produced from plant sources like soy, sunflower, etc. Thankfully, in this case, the source is specified as soy.
Is Snapple Watermelon Lemonade Vegan?
Snapple Watermelon Lemonade may not be vegan by some standards, so you might want to avoid it until the manufacturer can verify. The drink contains clarified lemon and watermelon juice concentrates which may be processed using animal-derived ingredients.
Specifically, the beverage contains filtered water, sugar, clarified lemon and watermelon juice concentrates, sea salt, citric acid, acacia gum, natural flavors, and other fruit juice concentrate (for color).14
So you know, I’ve reached out to Keurig Dr. Pepper (the owners of Snapple) to ask how the juices are clarified, and I’ll post the response here if and when I receive one.
Speaking of Dr. Pepper, if you’re interested in this article, you’ll definitely want to check out the article where we look at whether vegans can drink Dr. Pepper.
Is Snapple Grapeade Vegan?
Grapeade, Snapple’s sweetened version of grape juice, is considered vegan. It contains filtered water, sugar, fruit juice concentrates (apple, pear, and grape), citric acid, and natural flavors, all of which are vegan-friendly.15
In case you’re wondering about citric acid, an ingredient listed in pretty much every flavor so far, it’s completely vegan-friendly. It’s made via bacterial and never sourced from animals.
Is Snapple Strawberry Pineapple Lemonade Vegan?
Like other lemonade variants, Snapple Pineapple Lemonade may not be vegan by some standards. As mentioned, it contains clarified fruit concentrates. This doesn’t mean that you can’t choose this flavor, but if you want to play it safe, you may want to choose another option.
This flavor contains filtered water, sugar, clarified pineapple and strawberry juice concentrates, clarified lemon, natural flavors, citric acid, fruit juice concentrates (for color), and acacia gum.16
Is Snapple Kiwi Strawberry Juice Vegan?
Snapple Strawberry Kiwi juice is vegan-friendly. It does contain ester gum as pointed out by other bloggers, but glycerol and ingredients processed with glycerol are not considered off-limits for vegans by most standards.
Specifically, the ingredients include filtered water, sugar, citric acid, kiwi and strawberry juice concentrates, acacia gum, ester gum, vegetable juice concentrates (for color), and artificial flavors.17
Is Snapple Black Cherry Lemonade Vegan?
Snapple Black Cherry Lemonade may not be vegan for some as it contains clarified lemon. If you want to play it safe, it may be best to choose other flavors at least for now. Fortunately, the brand puts out countless vegan-friendly flavors to choose from so finding an alternative should be easy.
The ingredients include filtered water, sugar, cherry and grape juice concentrates, clarified lemon, natural flavors, and acacia gum.18
Other Vegan-Friendly Snapple Flavors
Above we covered what the brand considers their most popular flavors, so here I’ll list rapid-fire the remaining flavors. These are all considered vegan by most standards.
- Snapple Go Bananas.
- Snapple Diet Noni Berry Juice
- Snapple Peach Mangosteen Juice
- Snapple Orange Carrot Juice
- Snapple Mango Madness
- Snapple Apple
- Snapple Fruit Punch
- Snapple Orangeade
- Snapple Raspberry Peach Juice
- Snapple Cranberry Raspberry Juice
Is Snapple Vegan? Conclusion
So, that’s it for Snapple. All tea products are vegan, and most juice products are vegan-friendly by mainstream standards.
Some juice products may not be suitable for vegans who want to avoid the possibility of consuming beverages clarified with animal products.
But, as mentioned, not all vegans adhere to the same standards, so I’d imagine some in the community are fine with consuming these beverages, especially considering not all fining agents (substances used to clarify beverages) are non-vegan.
It all comes down to what you’re personally comfortable with.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
References
- Snapple Tea, Takes 2 to Mango Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-takes-two-to-mango-tea
- Snapple Tea, Diet Takes 2 to Mango Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-diet-takes-two-to-mango-tea
- Snapple Green Tea Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-green-tea
- Snapple Diet Green Tea Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/diet/snapple-diet-green-tea
- Vegetarian Journal’s Guide To Food Ingredients. https://www.vrg.org/ingredients/
- Snapple Tea, Peach Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-peach-tea
- Snapple Tea, Diet Peach Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-diet-peach-tea
- Snapple Tea, Lemon. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-lemon-tea
- Snapple Tea, Diet Lemon Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-diet-lemon-tea
- Snapple Tea, Raspberry Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-raspberry-tea
- Snapple Tea, Diet Raspberry Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/tea/snapple-diet-raspberry-tea
- Snapple Juice, Lemonade Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/juice/snapple-lemonade-juice
- Snapple Juice, Pink Lemonade Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/juice/snapple-pink-lemonade-juice
- Snapple Watermelon Lemonade Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/juice/snapple-watermelon-lemonade-juice
- Snapple Juice, Grape Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/juice/snapple-grapeade-juice
- Snapple Juice, Strawberry Pineapple Lemonade Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/juice/snapple-strawberry-pineapple-lemonade-juice
- Snapple Juice, Kiwi Strawberry Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/juice/snapple-kiwi-strawberry-juice
- Snapple Juice, Black Cherry Lemonade Ingredients. https://www.snapple.com/products/filter/juice/snapple-black-cherry-lemonade-juice