As Veganuary comes round once again January is often a time when people start a plant-based diet. But it’s also a time when people are wanting to lose weight and get fit. Many food brands are jumping onto the vegan bandwagon but in an attempt to make their products plant based they’re often swopping out animal ingredients for sugar and E numbers. Not good for your health or your waistline! On the other hand we have the healthier brands which use healthier sugar alternatives such as coconut sugar, agave syrup, fruit juice etc. These are a better option but are still high carb and high calorie. So finding sugar free vegan foods can be tricky. To help you in this task we’ve scoured the supermarkets and online stores to bring you our favourite sugar-free vegan food swops.
TREATS
Whether you’re trying to lose weight or not it’s important to include treats in your diet. This way you won’t feel like you’re denying yourself and are more likely to stick to your eating plan. The best way to lose weight is a healthy diet combined with exercise and occasional treats and if those treats are sugar-free even better! Here are some of our favourites….
Cookies
Swop out your regular sugar laden cookies with these vegan sugar-free alternatives.
1. Maryland Cookies Chocolate Chip Sugar Free 230G. £1.50
These cookies can be found in most Supermarkets. Each cookie contains kcal 47; Carbs 6.5g (of which sugars 0 g); Fat 2.4g.
2. Gullón Sugar Free Digestive Biscuits 400g £1.20
Available in Asda, Tesco and Amazon. Gullon do a number of sugar-free biscuits but they aren’t all vegan so check the labels before buying. Each Digestive biscuit contains 57 kcal; Carbs 9.0g (of which sugars 0.5 g); Fat 2.1g
3. Kambee Hand crafted cookies £5.60 per 2 packs.
Kambee make a selection of delicious biscuits that are not only vegan and sugar-free but gluten free too. Choose from Classic Shortbread, Dark Chocolate Dipped Shortbread, to White Chocolate and Cranberry. Kambee cookies are a bit higher on the price scale as they’re hand crafted and contain higher quality ingredients. Well worth trying if you fancy a bit of luxury.
All cookies contain from 70-42 kcal each with around 7g carbs (of which sugars 0.9g – 0g)
Available from https://www.kambee.co.uk/biscuitscookies
Chocolate
There are plenty of vegan chocolate bars around now but we’re so pleased to see the emergence of sugar-free vegan chocolate. Here are a few of our favourites..
1. ‘Funky Fat Foods’ Chocolate bars 50g £2.85 – £2.35 (depending on the site)
‘Funky Fat Foods’ make a delicious range of keto chocolate bars including dark chocolate, coconut, coffee, hazelnut and white chocolate. All bars are vegan and sugar free and average at around 588 kcal per 100g; 30g Carbs (of which sugars 0g) and can be found on various sites including: welleasy.co.uk, sweetvictoryproducts.co.uk, sweetswithout.co.uk and many more.
2. ‘Torras’ Chocolate bars 75g £1.55.
Torras make a selection of chocolate bars which are all sugar-free and vegan. Flavours include Banana, Strawberry, Mint, Coffee, Almond and Hazelnut. They all average at around 450 kcal per 100g; 46g Carbs (of which sugars 0.5g) and can be found on Amazon UK.
3. Kambee Couveture Chocolate bars £2.50 per 3 x 35g bars
Kambee make couverture sugar-free vegan chocolate bars in a variety of flavours including one ‘milk’ chocolate bar and a white chocolate strawberries and cream bar. Their bars have a high cocoa content ranging from 52 – 72%. All available from their website.
4. Vegan Chocolat Sugar –No Added Sugar 72% Cocoa Dark Chocolate Micro Drops 1kg £15.20
These sugar-free chocolate drops are great for baking and are sweetened with xylitol. Nutritionals per 100g: kCal 6555; Carbs 31g (of which sugars 1 g); Fat 46g.
Crisps/Snacks
The majority of flavoured crisps contain sugar so it best to stick with plain salted crisps, they tend to have cleaner ingredients too with no additives. However always check the label as some of the low fat ready salted also contain sugar. The above also applies to the various vegetable and pulse type snacks around. These are our low sugar favourites.
1.Kettle Chips Lightly Salted 150g £2.00
Nutritionals per 100g: kcal 513; Carb 51.5g (of which sugars 0.5g) Fat 30.1g Available in most supermarkets.
2. Hula Hoops Big Hoops Original Potato Rings Crisps 50g 90p
Nutritionals per 100g: kcal 501 Carb 66g (of which sugars 0.8g) Fat 6g. Available in most supermarkets.
3. Eat Real Lentil Chips Sea Salt Flavour 113g £1.25
Nutritionals per 100g: kcal 478; Carb 61.2g (of which sugars 0.6g) Fat 21g. Available in most supermarkets.
4. LOVE CORN Sea Salt Crunchy Corn 115g £1.60
Nutritionals per 100g: kcal 435; Carb 66g (of which sugars 0.7g). Fat 13.3g. Available from Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose and many online stores.
GENERAL FOODS
It’s surprising the amount of sugar that’s often added to every day foods. So it’s always best to check labels when shopping. We hope you find some of these sugar-free options helpful.
Breakfast Cereals
Breakfast cereals are arguably one of the worst offenders of added sugar and yes that includes the healthier cereals like muesli and granolas. So swop out your high sugar cereals for sugar-free options such as porridge, puffed wheat or shredded wheat. But be careful what you’re adding to them. Instead of sugar or syrups, try a healthy sweetner such as xylitol. Our protein powders are also a great sugar free way to flavour and sweeten porridge. Or if you’re a granola lover check out some of these lower sugar options.
1.The Paleo Foods Co. Low Sugar Grain-Free Granola 285g £4.00
Nutritional info per 40g serving: kcal 234; Carbs 5.9g (of which sugars 1.9g); Fat 20g. Available from Sainsburys, Ocado and their website
https://www.paleofoodscompany.com/shop/8im4p4b3f9vvm05mhehrfnbjqs5d39
2. Raw Gorilla KETO Vegan ORGANIC Choc Chip Granola 250g £5.19
Nutritional info per 40g serving: 214 kcal; Carbs 4.3g (of which sugars 1.6g); Fat 16.8g. Available from Sainsburys, Ocado and their website
Milk/Cream
Milk
There’s a wide range of plant milks on the market from soya, oat, rice and nut milks. But some do have added sugar so always check the label. Here are a few of our sugar-free favourites.
1. Alpro Soya No Sugars Chilled Drink 1L £1.55
Nutritional info per 100ml serving: kcal 33; 0g Carbs (of which sugars 0g); Fat 1.8g. Available from most supermarkets.
2. Plenish Plant Milk 1L £2.50
Plenish make a delicious range of organic plant milks including soya, oat, coconut and nut milks. They all weigh in at around 30 calories per 100ml; with 1.5g – 0g carbs (of which sugars 0g) depending on milk type. Some of their range can be found at Sainsburys and Waitose whilst their full range can be found on their website.
Cream
There are a few vegan creams on the market now but despite some being labelled as unsweetened they all contain sugar in one form or another. For this reason we recommend you make your own vegan cream. It’s easy to make and can be whipped up in seconds. Recipe below:
Soya Cream
Simply mix two level teaspoons of cornflour into a paste with 50ml of soya milk.
Once the paste is smooth, put it in a sauce pan with another 70ml of soya milk, and heat over a low flame until it has thickened. You should keep stirring the mixture.
Place the liquid in a blender with three tablespoons of sweetner, a dash of vanilla extract and 100ml of soya milk.
Mix slowly, adding 180ml of vegetable oil to the cream as it blends. Don’t worry if it curdles – just stir it and add another dash of cold milk.
Sweetners
Swop out your sugar and syrups for healthy sweetners. There are number of zero sugar sweetners available. Some such as Aspartame and Sucralose are best avoided due to health concerns. But luckily some are safe to use, our favourites are..
1. Xylitol and Erythritol
Xylitol and Erythritol are sugar alcohols, they don’t spike your blood sugar or insulin levels, nor do they affect levels of blood fats like cholesterol or triglycerides. They taste very much like sugar and Xylitol even has health benefits such as reducing the risk of cavities and dental decay and as found in one study, improving bone density, helping prevent osteoporosis.
They both come in granulated form suitable for adding to drinks, cereals, and baking. They can also be blended in a nutri bullet to make sugar free icing sugar!
Total Sweet Xylitol 225g £2.80.
Nutritional info per 100g: kcal 214; Carbs 100g (of which sugars 0g); Fat 0g. Available from most supermarkets and health food stores.
Pure Via 100% Erythritol Keto Granulated Sweetener 250g £3.00
Nutritional info per 100g: kcal 0; Carbs 100g (of which sugars 0g); Fat 0g
Available from most supermarkets and health food stores.
2. Stevia
Commonly known as sweet leaf or sugar leaf, stevia rebaudiana is a widely grown plant that belongs to the sunflower family and is native to Central and South America. Studies have shown it to be a safe, naturally derived, calorie-free sugar substitute, and it’s used to sweeten a number of foods and beverages. It does however have a slight after taste and for this reason it works better in some products than others. We use stevia to sweeten our protein powders because we feel it works well, as do a growing number of food and drink brands. But when it comes to adding sweetners to food and drinks at home we’d recommend using the other sweetners on this list as they taste similar to sugar and not as much experimentation is required.
Nut Butters
When it comes to nut butters always check the label as many do have added sugar. Here are our sugar-free picks..
1.Pip & Nut Crunchy Peanut Butter 300g £2.00
Nutritionals per 100g: kCal 606; Carbs 11.9g, (of which sugars 5.7g) Fat 48.g Available from Sainsburys, Ocado and their website
https://www.pipandnut.com/collections/jars/products/crunchy-peanut-butter-300g-
2.Tesco 100% Crunchy Peanut Butter 280G £1.50
Nutritionals per 100g: kCal 617; Carbs 13.2g, (of which sugars 6.2g) Fat 48.9g.
3. Sainsbury’s 100% Smooth Almond Butter 340g £4.60
Nutritionals per 100g: kCal 639; Carbs 4.3g, (of which sugars 3.8g) Fat 54.4g.
4. Foodie Market Smooth Cashew Butter 170g £1.79
Nutritionals per 100g: kCal 628; Carbs 24g, (of which sugars 5.2g) Fat 49g. Available from Aldi.
Yoghurt
There are a few plant based yoghurts around these days. A lot of them have added sugar or a sugar content. So it’s best to get a plain yoghurt and sweeten it yourself with fruit or sweetner. Our protein powders can also be stirred into yoghurt for a sugar-free treat.
The only plain vegan yoghurt we’ve found that’s zero sugar is Alpro Plain No Sugars Yoghurt Alternative 500g £1.25. Nutritionals per 100g: kcal 42; Carbs 0g (of which sugars 0g) Fat 2.3g. Available in most supermarkets.
Condiments
Alot of condiments have added sugar so again it’s best to swop these out with sugar-free versions.
Ketchup
We only found one ketchup on the market that doesn’t contain sugars. This is ‘Real Good Ketchup’ 310g £2.20. It also comes in 700g bottles, all bottles are recycleable. Sweetened with xylitol and stevia. Nutritionals Per 15g Serving: kcal 66; Carbs 1.8 (of which sugars 0.9g) Fat 0.4g.
Available from Ocado, Wholefoods Market London stores, selected Co-op and Health Food shops, Amazon Uk and many general food websites.
Mustard
Most mustards have added sugar except Dijon mustard but it’s best to check the label to make sure. Here are our favourites.
1. Sainsbury’s Dijon Mustard 185g 65p
Nutritionals per teaspoon (5g) kcal 8; Carbs 0.5g (of which sugars 0.5g) Fat 0.6g.
2. Maille Dijon Original Mustard 215g £1.70
Per 10g portion kcal 15; Carb 0.5;(of which sugars 0.5g) Fat 1.1g.
Available from Sainsburys, Tesco, Morrisons, Waitrose, Ocado, Amazon and many other online stores.
Mayonaise
We scoured many vegan mayonnaise products but didn’t find one which didn’t contain any form of sugar. Plamil used to do a number of sugar-free vegan mayos but they’ve recently discontinued their range. Therefore we recommend you make your own mayo. It’s quick and easy to make. Recipe link below.
Do you have any sugar-free favourites?
If you’ve got any favourite sugar-free vegan finds that you think should be mentioned in this post, just give us a shout on social media or the contact button on this website and and we’ll be happy to add them in. Happy sugar free living!
