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PAM Cooking Spray is an oil-based cooking spray that is designed to help with cooking. The spray can be used on pans, griddles, and bakeware to help prevent sticking and make cleanup easier. However is PAM cooking spray vegan?
Almost all flavors of PAM cooking spray are vegan such as Original, Olive Oil, Avocado Oil and Coconut Oil just to name a few. They don’t contain any ingredients derived from animals.
Below is a table showing PAM cooking spray flavors and its vegan status.
| Flavor | Vegan Status |
| Original | Vegan. |
| Olive Oil | Vegan. |
| Butter | Maybe, contains Natural Flavor. |
| Baking | Maybe, contains Natural Flavor. |
| Grilling | Maybe, contains Phosphated Mono- And Diglycerides. |
| Organic Extra Olive Oil | Vegan. |
| Avocado Oil | Vegan. |
| Coconut Oil | Vegan. |
| Extra Virgin Olive Oil Non-Aerosol | Vegan. |
| Avocado Oil Non-aerosol | Vegan. |
| Coconut Non-aerosol | Vegan. |
Pam Cooking Spray Ingredients
Below is a list of ingredients from all the flavors that I could find.
- Avocado Oil
- Canola Oil
- Coconut Oil
- Palm Oil
- Soy Lecitihin
- Dimethyl Silicone
- Propellent
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Natural Flavor
- Wheat Flour
- Silicon Dioxide
[Source]
As always I’ve highlighted the ingredients that we need to take a closer look at.
Questionable Ingredients
Palm Oil
Palm oil is a common vegetable in many editable products and is an ingredient in two of the PAM cooking spray flavors. This in an very controversial ingredient because of the severe deforestation taking place to make room for new plantations.
It’s forcing animals such as orangutans away from their natural habitats and there are many heart breaking videos on YouTube showing orangutans trying to fight off excavators. Many people not only vegans tends to stay away from palm oil and this had made the news for years now.
However there is a way for the companies to produce sustainable palm oil and to buy sustainable palm. It’s called RSPO, which is a non-profit organisation where companies can get certified for sustainable palm oil.
Conagra Brands is a member which means that the palm oil in PAM is more vegan-friendly.
Natural Flavor
The next ingredient up is natural flavor and this ingredient can be a bit tricky. It’s an umbrella term, which means that it can contain several different ingredients and this could be a problem for vegans, because the ingredients can be made from animal sources.
This makes it very hard to vegans to know if this ingredient is vegan or not. The best way is to contact the company and ask just to be sure.
Mono- And Diglycerides
Can be made from both plants and animals.
Conclusion
It’s amazing that so many flavors of PAM cooking spray is vegan, making this cooking spray an excellent product for vegans. It’s easy to use and will get the job done.
The two questionable ingredients palm oil and natural flavors are very common in the food industry, which can cause problem for vegans, where the palm oil can be non RSPO and the natural flavor always having the possibility to contain non-vegan ingredients.
Thanks for reading, take care!
