Cruelty-Free Crunch: A Guide to Vegan Granola

Chocolate chip granola, Cupful of Kale

Granola is a favourite breakfast and snack for many. But many brands on sale contain honey and lots of refined sugar. You can make up a batch yourself and keep in an airtight container, or find better brands to buy.

Read up on food safety for people and pets (many foods are unsafe near animal friends). For storebought, recycle packaging at supermarket bag bins, if kerbside does not recycle. 

Before recycling tins, rinse/remove lids (or pop ring-pulls over holes) then step on the can to ‘pinch’ inner rims together, to stop wildlife getting trapped.

Although it’s good to compost food scraps, unless you have a food waste bin (turned into biogas), just bin allium scraps (onion, leeks, garlic, shallot, chives), citrus/tomato/rhubarb scraps and tea/coffee grounds. To avoid too much acid/caffeine affecting compost creatures.

Reasons to choose vegan granola

• Natural sweeteners – vegan versions use maple syrup, agave or date syrup over honey
• Rich in plant proteins – packed with nuts, hemp hearts, pumpkin seeds, for a protein boost to power your morning
• High in fibre – built on a base of whole grain rolled oats, these are good for your heart, keep you full and supports healthy digestion
• Lower environmental footprint – granola without butter lowers carbon emissions, saves water and reduces land use.

Cheeky Nibble (cereals that taste like dessert)

Cheeky Nibble is a wonderful brand of vegan granolas, a bit expensive but that’s because they are artisan-made, allergen-friendly, free from palm oil and sold in sustainable packaging. They also taste like dessert, so it’s like eating healthy cake for breakfast, and are absolutely delicious.

The founder created the brand as she has autism and Tourettes Syndrome and found that baking helped her anxiety. She also finds exercise helpful, so she combined her two passions to bake granolas that were chunky enough to take with her to the gym, yet had nostalgic flavours.

The granola is sold in boxes that are carbon-balanced with World Land’s Trust, so you can eat your breakfast with a clear conscience. The flavours include:

• Cherry Bakewell
• Victoria sponge
• Banoffee Pie
• Vanilla latte

Spoon cereals

Spoon Cereals makes granola with a few big differences. Firstly, it’s made in the company’s own factory in Yorkshire (not in some distant faraway place you’ve never heard of). Secondly, all the packaging is easy to recycle.

This brand makes the tastiest granolas, and is sold online or in many grocery stores. All the flavours are vegan and use either organic (not certified) oats or oats from regenerative farming, which is good for the soil.

They are also sweetened with maple syrup or chicory root, rather than white sugar. Although less sweet and sugary, they are much tastier – and better for your teeth! And due to oats, they are also good for your heart (oats are full of soluble fibre which kind of ‘sweeps away bad cholesterol’ in your gut. Job done!

Flavours (some gluten-free) include:

• Cinnamon and pecan
• Apple and almond butter
• Peanut butter
• The Low-Sugar One (sweetened with chicory root)