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Bear Naked Granola is a healthy and delicious alternative to sugary breakfast cereals. Made with whole grains, nuts and dried fruit, with no artificial flavors or preservatives, Bear Naked Granola is a natural choice for a healthy breakfast or snack. But, is Bear Naked Granola vegan?
Bear Naked Granola Cacao and Cashew Butter, Chewy Bites Dark Chocolate Sea Salt and Bear Naked Granola Peanut Butter are vegan because they don’t contain any animal-sourced ingredients.
Below is a table showing Bear Naked Granola flavors and its vegan status.
| Flavor | Vegan Status |
| Bear Naked Granola Cacao and Cashew Butter | Vegan. |
| Bear Naked Chewy Bites Dark Chocolate Sea Salt | Vegan. |
| Bear Naked Granola Peanut Butter | Vegan. |
| Bear Naked Granola Banana Nut | No, contains Honey. |
| Bear Naked Granola Maple Pecan | No, contains Honey. |
| Bear Naked Crunchy Bites Chocolate Chip | No, contains Honey. |
| Bear Naked 0g Added Sugar Granola Peanut Butter Crunch | Maybe, contains Natural Flavors. |
| Bear Naked Maple Pecan Steel Cut Oatmeal and Crunchy Granola Topper | No, contains Honey. |
| Bear Naked Granola Protein Original Cinnamon | No, contains Honey. |
| Bear Naked Granola Fit V’nilla Almond | Maybe, contains Natural Flavors. |
| Bear Naked Granola Fit Triple Berry | Maybe, contains Natural Flavors. |
| Bear Naked Chewy Bites Peanut Butter and Honey | No, contains Honey. |
| Bear Naked Granola Dark Chocolate Almond Grain Free | Maybe, contains Natural Flavors. |
| Bear Naked Granola Fruit & Nut | No, contains Honey. |
Bear Naked Granola Ingredients
Below is a list of ingredients from all the flavors that I could find.
- Acacia Gum
- Allulose
- Almond Flour
- Almonds
- Apple Puree Concentrate
- Baking Soda
- Brown Rice
- Brown Rice Syrup
- Cane Sugar
- Cashew Butter
- Cashews
- Cherry Puree Concentrate
- Chia Seeds
- Chocolate
- Cinnamon
- Cocoa Butter
- Cocoa
- Coconut Oil
- Coconut Sugar
- Dates
- Dried Cranberries
- Expeller Pressed Canola Oil
- Expeller Pressed Sunflower Oil
- Fermented Pea And Brown Rice Protein
- Flax Seeds
- Freeze Dried Blueberries
- Freeze Dried Raspberries
- Freeze Dried Strawberries
- Ginger
- Ground Flax Seeds
- Honey
- Hydrolyzed Whole Oat Flour
- Invert Cane Syrup
- Maple Pecan Granola
- Maple Syrup
- Millet
- Molasses
- Monk Fruit Extract
- Natural Flavors
- Oat Bran
- Oat Fiber
- Oatmeal
- Peanut Butter
- Pecans
- Pepitas
- Praline Pecans
- Puffed Millet
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Raisins
- Rice Crisps
- Rice Starch
- Roasted Soybeans
- Rosemary Extract For Freshness
- Salt
- Sea Salt
- Semi-sweet Chocolate
- Semisweet Chocolate Chips
- Semisweet Chocolate Chunks
- Soy Crisps
- Soy Lecithin
- Soy Protein Isolate
- Sunflower Lecithin
- Sunflower Seeds
- Tapioca Syrup
- Toasted Sesame Seeds
- Vanilla Extract
- Vegetable Glycerin
- Walnuts
- White Pepper
- Whole Oat Flour
- Whole Grain Oats
[Source]
As always I’ve highlighted the ingredients that we need to take a closer look at.
Non-Vegan Ingredients
Honey
Honey is a very common ingredient in granola and this is quite unfortunate for vegans since it’s not a vegan-friendly ingredient. Vegan don’t eat any ingredient that is made from insects or animals.
The honey is extracted from bee hive and replaced with sugar, this kind of exploit does not align with veganism.
Questionable Ingredients
Sugar
Now sugar is a very questionable ingredient because of the presence of bone char. Two common types of sugar are beet- and cane sugar, with cane sugar being more popular in candy and snacks industry. Where does the bone char come in play? Well the cane sugar is often refined in order to fit the product better and in this process the sugar is also bleached.
A common bleaching is to use bone char from dead cows and this has made many vegans upset, because it’s impossible for us to know if this is the case for the sugar we want to eat. Exploiting animals in the production process of a product would make it non-vegan.
Natural Flavors
The second questionable ingredient is natural flavors and this one is also hard for vegans, because it’s an umbrella term, which means that companies can add whatever ingredients they want and only having to call it natural flavors.
This means that both animal-derived ingredients and plant-sourced ingredient can be added making impossible for us vegans to know if it’s vegan-friendly or not. Sometimes we might guess, but we can’t be 100% sure unless the company discloses it or the company is contacted directly.
There is an article at National Geographic where they found out that some vanilla flavors actually uses butt goo from beavers. With this information we now know that anything from the animal could be used in ingredients.
Soy
The reason I but soy as an questionable ingredient is just to make more people aware of the presence of GMO crops in products. Soy is a very common GMO crop and a big issues with this is the amount of herbicide that is used when growing GMO crops.
It can damage surrounding ecosystems severely and this is why a lot of vegans tends to stay from GMO crops and look for products that has the label non GMO project. It’s a certification that companies can put on their product when they don’t use GMO’s.
Conclusion
It’s great that Bear Naked has three vegan flavors of granola based the analyzed ingredients. As you can see there are many flavors with honey, almost all of them and this is normal today, which can make it hard to vegans to find a good granola mix.
I make my own granola just to know what ingredients that are used and I also like to set the flavor I enjoy the most.
Thanks for reading, take care!
