I have good news and bad news.
Some Emergen-C products are vegan, and some are not.
Considering all their product lines and flavors, looking through all the ingredients took a while!
But now I can confidently break down which Emergen-C products are and aren’t vegan.
Table of Contents
Ingredients in Emergen-C
There are 2 problem ingredients that I ran into:
- Honey powder – Honey is not vegan, and a few products contained this.
- Vitamin D – If you see vitamin D on the nutrition label for any Emergen-C product, it’s in the form of D3, which comes from lanolin (sheep’s wool), which is not vegan.
Other than that the ingredients looked good.
While it differs based on the specific product line, the most common other ingredients in Emergen-C are:
- Fructose – Fructose is a form of sugar, and it’s always plant-derived.
- Maltodextrin – Another type of sugar, also vegan.
- Citric Acid – Occurs naturally in citrus fruits like oranges, it’s always vegan.
- Malic Acid – Found in many fruits as it contributes to a “sour” taste. This is extracted from said fruits, and is vegan.
- Natural Flavors* – Not all natural flavors are vegan, so there’s a small risk that this is not. However, for a fruit-flavored product like Emergen-C, it’s very unlikely that the natural flavors contain any dairy or meat flavoring ingredients.
On top of those you’ll see a small amount of natural coloring ingredients, preservatives, and vitamins. None of which I saw any concern for as a vegan.
Emergen-C Products That Are NOT Vegan
Let’s start with the Emergen-C products you should avoid:
- The Everyday Immune Support Pink Lemonade Flavor (contains honey powder)
- ALL Enhanced Immune Support Formula (also called “Immune+”)
- Emergen-Zzzz (This sleep-aid contains vitamin D)
- Immune+ Chewables (these are different from the “gummies”)
Basically everything other than those 2 lines and 1 flavor appear to be vegan.
Emergen-C Products That ARE Vegan
You can find the full ingredients list for each product on its product page on Emergen-C’s website.
While you should double-check, here are the products that I believe are vegan:
- Everyday Immune Support (except pink lemonade flavor)
- All Energy+ flavors
- All Emergen-C Hydration+ Sports Drink Mix flavors
- All Probiotics flavors
- All Hydrate flavors
- All Replenish flavors
- Kidz
What About the Emergen-C Gummies?
Surprisingly even the gummies might vegan, which is rare in the supplement world.
For example, here are the ingredients for the orange zest gummies:
- Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Water. Contains <2% of: Annatto Seed Extract (color), Citric Acid, Natural Flavors, Pectin, Sodium Citrate
Luckily they use the vegan alternative for gelatin – pectin.
While natural flavors are not always vegan, they likely are in this context. Some sugar is vegan, and some is not, and that’s the only potential issue I see.
If you don’t want to take the risk, just avoid the gummies.
I will try my best to keep this up to date if Emergen-C changes their product line or formulas, but I still recommend double checking the ingredients list and nutrition label, particularly for those 2 main issues before buying any.
