What is vegan chocolate? Does it really need labelling to be vegan? There are many vegan products and options out there. Are they worth it?
To be vegan, dark chocolate must contain no animal content whatsoever. Some in the vegan community feel that vegan food must also contain no ingredients whose production requires the use of animal content. For example, many refined sugars use charcoal made from animal bones during the refining process.
So if you're looking to buy vegan chocolate, you need to look for labeling and ingredients.
Vegan Labeling
Many different organizations provide vegan certification. These organizations typically licence the use of their logo to food manufacturers and restaurants. Standards of individual organizations vary, so, depending on your personal principles, you may need to investigate the organizations whose products you intend to buy. Once you're satisfied, the presence of the logo allows you to skip the ingredients list, making shopping that much easier. Here is a list of US and international Vegan Logos. Some of the graphics on this page do not show up, but this is a good representative list.
Some food manufacturers provide their own certification process, and then label their products as "vegan". Again, it's up to you to check out the standards of these manufacturers. If their private label requirements meet yours, then you can save time and effort in shopping.
Vegan Ingredients, or "Accidently Vegan"
But what if you're online or shopping somewhere and you find some dark chocolate without a vegan certification logo. Can you tell by the ingredients if the product is vegan chocolate? Maybe. Better dark chocolate will have fewer ingredients. This makes things easier for you. If you are looking only to eliminate animal content, you are looking to eliminate dairy. If the ingredients listed do not include milk, milk products, milk fat, dairy fat, whey, casain, etc., and if you recognize the other few ingredients, then the product itself is probably animal product free. But, unless you know the manufacturer, this won't tell you about any manufacturing process concerns you may have.
For example, I found this about.com article that listed several products as being animal product free, and thus basically vegan. I looked up the ingredients for each of these products: Chocolove Dark Chocolate, Newman's Own Dark Chocolate, Ritter Sport Fine Extra Dark Chocolate, Green and Black's Organic Chocolate, and Organic Equal Exchange Extra Dark Chocolate.
When that about.com article was published, and when I looked up the ingredients, each of the four products met the basic rule of no animal products in the ingredients. Look at the short simple ingredient list for the Ritter Sport, for example: cocoa mass (fine cocoa 40%), sugar, cocoa butter, natural vanilla. However, each of these manufacturers had a caveat somewhere on their web sites about the possibility of containing traces of milk, production on equipment that may contain milk products, etc. You will have to decide whether this meets your needs.
Some people (and some organizations, like PETA) are labelling products like this "accidently vegan".
Since the about.com article was published, Green & Black's has changed their published ingredients list. Each of their dark chocolate products now lists "Organic Whole Milk Powder" as an ingredient. Their web site FAQs section says that this is because their milk chocolate and dark chocolate products are processed on the same machines, and there could be cross-contamination. You'll have to decide if this meets your vegan requirements.
Is It Worth It?
If you are looking for vegan chocolate, you are doing so as a matter of conscience. Although dark chocolate has some health benefits, vegan dark chocolate is not inherently healthier. Even the various standards for labeling vegan chocolate vary from producer to producer. If certain vegan dark chocolate products meet your personal standards, though, then the additional costs may be worth it for you.
