Free From Fellows (vegan sweets and marshmallows)
Free From Fellows are not sold in shops, the range includes wine gums, gummy bears, pear drops, rhubarb and custard and classic cola bottles. Sweetened with stevia and maltitol syrup (again not healthy but better than xylitol).
There are also vegan marshmallows (conventional ones are made from gelatine – animal bones). Ideal for snacking, roasting when camping or topping your vegan hot chocolate! They are also suitable for Kosher and Halal diets.
A bag of sweets is obviously not a health food, but millions of people in England enjoy chomping on a bag of fruit pastilles or wine gums. That’s not going to change, so let’s find better brands, and also learn how and where to recycle the packaging.
Unless you have a Terracycle recycling point locally, sweet wrappers for now can only be recycled at supermarket bag recycling bins. But that’s better than not at all, so just collect them up and deposit, next time you’re passing (stash somewhere secure, to keep away from young children and pets).
Avoid sweets for small children due to choking hazards (use a letterbox guard for online deliveries if you live with pets). Never litter sweets (xylitol in some brands can be lethal to pets and wildlife).
Liquorice should not be consumed during pregnancy/nursing (it can cause early labour) or for medical conditions, as it can blood pressure and lower potassium.
What’s wrong with conventional sweet brands?
Quite a lot. For a start, some (as stated above) are sweetened with xylitol, which is lethal to pets (and likely birds and wildlife) if littered on the streets). Many of the best-selling brands are made with gelatine (animal bones) from factory farms. And most of those that aren’t are made with beeswax (so not suitable for vegans). And may don’t contain real fruit, just cheap flavourings. Why not support some better artisan brands instead?
- Haribo sweets contain refined sugar and gelatine (pork fat).
- Rowntree’s make fruit pastilles and jelly tots. These are vegan, but sweetened with refined sugar.
- Fruittella and Starburst are chewy fruit candies. Both are made with refined sugar and palm fat, some versions abroad contain pork fat.
- Maybards Bassetts make wine gums and liquorice allsorts, again both contain pork fat.
All of M & S’s own brand sweets are vegetarian, and most are vegan. They do use refined sugar, but are better than Haribo’s and other alternatives made with pork fat, and easy to find if you don’t want to order online.
Most are fruit-based, the designers could do without putting pictures of animals releasing balloons on the packaging, as balloon releases harm all creatures.
