If you’ve grown up in love with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, you’d agree that it has an irresistible taste and a well-deserved fan following. Created by General Mills, Cinnamon Toast Crunch is essentially made of solidified cinnamon and sugar, but is Cinnamon Toast Crunch vegan?
Probably not. It is a popular belief that Cinnamon Toast Crunch contains milk. Although, the parent company General Mills has clearly stated that there are no milk-based products in the ingredients. We have found some suspicious and a few obvious non-vegan ingredients in this popular breakfast cereal that you might want to know more about.
As a vegan, you must have figured out healthier options in every aspect. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is often called out for its relatively unhealthy constituents. The unacceptably high sugar content and the additional food colorants make it an improper choice for a healthy breakfast. Take a look at the constituents and know your food better.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch has ingredients you wouldn’t want to eat
Popular research says that Cinnamon Toast Crunch used to contain milk as an ingredient in the past. The company denies the presence of any milk product in the cereal in today’s time.
But that doesn’t change the non-vegan status of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It contains Vitamin D3 which is often derived from animals. The company cleared the air a few years ago by stating that their Vitamin D3 is indeed derived from lanolin.
Amongst the other varieties of cereal offered by General Mills, Apple Cinnamon Toast Crunch also contains milk-derived lactose.
Apart from the direct non-vegan ingredients, Cinnamon Toast Crunch also contains processed sugar which is not tolerated well by strict vegans. Another such problematic ingredient is soy lecithin. This seemingly innocent breakfast cereal contains caramel color which also has a bad reputation amongst vegans.
Vitamin D3 is unacceptable in a vegan diet
In case you aren’t aware, Vitamin D3 is derived from lanolin which in turn is a product of sheep’s wool. Vitamin D3 is used in the fortification of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Lanolin is the greasy substance present in sheep’s wool for which the sheep are often robbed. It is not uncommon for workers to skin the sheep while removing their wool. The poor animals have to go through immense pain and discomfort for the sake of man’s greed.
Many producers claim to have obtained their wool without causing any pain to the sheep but this is a rather unknown fact. No wonder there are many plant-based sources from which Vitamin D3 can be easily obtained. Such cruelty to animals for the sake of food is unacceptable in veganism.
Strict vegans are against the consumption of processed sugar
Cinnamon Toast Crunch contains processed sugar. Like most other manufacturers, the makers of this popular breakfast cereal are unable to track down the sources of all the batches of sugar that arrive at their facility.
You must be aware, more than half the sugar factories in America use bone char for filtering their sugar. This filtration process turns the initially brown sugar into a more acceptable white pristine form.
Bone char, in turn, is a product of animal cruelty. It is produced when skulls of cattle are burned at very high temperatures in combustion chambers. This step in the production of white cane sugar is not accepted by vegans.
But all cane sugar is not necessarily bleached using bone char. Many factories instead employ granular activated charcoal to attain the same pristine white-colored cane sugar.
Many factories do not produce sugar from cane at all. They instead acquire sugar from beet or coconut. Sugar derived from beet and coconut is naturally white and does not require a filtration process.
As much as the practice of producing and using bone char is wrong, it is also important to consider that there is no way of knowing where your sugar comes from. The sugar you are suspicious about may not have been filtered using bone char at all.
It is advisable to not make processed sugar a big factor in deciding your diet. Because it may as well be vegan, we never know.
Soy lecithin is often obtained from animal sources
It is dreamy to expect that capitalist manufacturers would obtain their soy lecithin from soy and sunflowers. Many obtain it from animal-based sources instead. This product was first extracted from egg yolk and has since been derived from numerous animal-based sources like fish and animal meat.
Caramel color is listed as an ingredient in Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Caramel food colorant is derived from sugar or other natural sources and is vegan. Unlike other food coloring agents, it isn’t derived from animals based sources. However, caramel food color is also tested on animals.
It is common for food colorants to be tested on animals for determining their safe limits of consumption. It is also common for many animals to die in the process.
The animals that survive the pain and horror of such testing are often killed if they develop abnormalities. In short, animal testing labs are clean butcher houses. Many vegans refrain from the consumption of food colorants to discourage animal testing.
Veganism comes with many responsibilities. Most of them involve giving up on your favorite foods that don’t turn out vegan. Well, you don’t have to miss out on your favorite foods anymore. We have brought you an exquisite recipe to make vegan cinnamon toast crunch at home.
It is easy to make vegan cinnamon toast crunch by yourself
Almost every food item can be made in your kitchen using all vegan ingredients. Be it tortillas or breakfast cereal, you only need the right recipe to never miss out on everything delicious.
The recipe underneath is vegan and also gluten-free! You wouldn’t believe yourself in making such wonderful breakfast cereal all by yourself.
You’d require the following ingredients:
- One cup of gluten-free oat flour
- One cup of sorghum flour
- One-third cup of coconut sugar
- Two flax eggs
- One-fourth cup of applesauce
- One-fourth cup of almond milk
- One-fourth cup of coconut oil
- One teaspoon cinnamon
- One teaspoon vanilla bean
- One-fourth teaspoon of baking powder
After you have assorted the requisite ingredients, start the preparation for your exquisite home-made breakfast cereal.
First, preheat the oven to 350’F. Select all the dry ingredients and mix them in a bowl. Mix all the wet ingredients in another bowl. Then mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients until a uniform composition is attained.
Roll the thoroughly mixed dough into a ball and wrap it in plastic. This needs to be kept in the fridge for an hour so that it firms up. After one hour, take out your firm dough and cut it in half with a bench scraper.
Take a sheet of parchment paper and put one half on top of it. The parchment sheet should be lightly sprinkled with flour in advance. Now cover this set-up with a plastic sheet.
Now roll this dough as thin as possible. The whole baking sheet may get covered with it. At this point, you can also add extra sugar to the dough if it suits your taste.
After you have done this, brush the dough with water, and spread the cinnamon-sugar mixture on top of it. Then you can use a pizza cutter to finally cut it into little pieces of cereal.
Cutting into little squares is easier than other shapes. Apply the same procedure for the second half of dough. Then bake your cereal in the oven for 15 minutes.
Be careful to flip the cereal pieces to another side and bake again for another 15 minutes. Stay alert so that your cereal doesn’t get burned on excessive heat.
Is Cinnamon Toast Crunch Vegan And healthy for you?
Doctors advise against the consumption of cereals like Cinnamon Sugar Crunch because of their high sugar content and other harmful ingredients like caramel color additives and trisodium phosphate.
It is widely known that eating sodium phosphate laden foods can raise phosphate levels in the body to an unhealthy level. High phosphate levels are correlated with heart diseases, decreased bone density, and kidney dysfunction.
There are no harmful indications for some ingredients with otherwise alarming names. Ammonium phosphatide glycerol is used as an emulsifier in Cinnamon Toast Crunch and it is not harmful.
Although dry fruits have more calorie content than fresh fruits, there is no evidence that they are unhealthy. Dried grapes apricots, bananas, and cranberries are usually added to breakfast cereals and nutritionists see no problems with their consumption.
You would have noticed citric acid amongst the ingredients. This protects the growth of microorganisms on the dried fruit. Ascorbyl palmitate is also present to protect the color of the dried fruits. Although there is no evidence to suggest that ascorbyl palmitate is harmful, it is not beneficial to health either.
The high sugar levels in Cinnamon Toast Crunch are very unhealthy for the body. As veganism is also about consuming a healthy diet. Cinnamon Toast Crunch doesn’t embark on the definition of veganism in any way.
