By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

In August 2025, the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) debuted its vegan label, one of the hundreds of third-party certifications offered by them in several diverse industries since 1944.

The NSF vegan label certifies many types of products and procedures as meeting all of NSF’s requirements for a vegan designation. The products eligible for NSF’s vegan certification are:

• Foods
• Dietary supplements
• Cosmetics
• Personal care products
• Household products

In November 2025, NSF announced that Michele’s Granola was the first company to receive NSF’s vegan certification for its granola and muesli products.

According to NSF’s website, their vegan label applies to:

• Ingredients
• Processing aids
• Food contact packaging

NSF also states on their website that their label ensures supply chain verification and that standard operating procedures are in place for proper storage and handling of vegan ingredients. The certification also requires:

• Cleaning and sanitation to prevent contamination or commingling with non-vegan substances
• Employee training
• Traceability and recall
• Complaint handling
• Compliance monitoring with technical reviews

Q&A with NSF

The VRG asked Carey Allen, Director of Food Claims at NSF, several questions about the NSF label. Here is our Q&A email exchange from January 2026:

Q: What is your working definition of the term “vegan” as it applies to food and beverages?

A: NSF P543: Vegan and Cruelty-Free Products (NSF P543) includes specific requirements for vegan products. Ingredients, processing aids and food contact packaging material used in or on products labeled as “vegan” must not be derived from animals nor contain animal ingredients at any amount. Products may not contain animal-derived GMOs and must not be subject to animal testing. Eligible products under NSF P543 include foods, dietary supplements, cosmetics, personal care products, and household products.

Q: Do you base vegan certification solely on an ingredients list supplied by a food company? If more is involved, please elaborate.

A: Products certified by NSF as vegan undergo a strict technical review. The certification process involves key documentation, reviewing not just the product ingredients, processing aids, and packaging, but also product labels, the manufacturing facilities and standard operating procedures.

Q: For vegan certification, do you rely on a company’s statements from their ingredient suppliers about processing aids? If more is involved, please explain.

A: NSF reviews all ingredients and processing aids as part of the certification process. We review the source of each element to ensure it complies with the standard, review manufacturing supplied documentation such as specification sheets and/or certificates of analysis, and each ingredient and processing aid manufacturer completes a compliance declaration or provides a current third-party vegan certificate. This review also applies to contact packaging manufacturers.

Q: Would you certify foods and beverages manufactured using animal genes via precision fermentation as their sole animal input as “vegan”?

A: No.

Q: Would you certify food grown in labs using animal cells as “vegan”?

A: No.

Q: How is your vegan certification different from other vegan certifications?

A: NSF vegan certification includes the analysis and control of ingredients and processing aids from production, procurement and handling to manufacturing, distribution and consumption of the finished product.

NSF vegan certification not only involves a thorough review of each ingredient and processing aid but also includes a review of the manufacturing facility. Manufacturing facilities are required to have policies and procedures in place to ensure that compliance is maintained with NSF’s Vegan Certification Protocol.

A standard operating procedure (SOP) on ingredient and processing aid approval must address vegan integrity of raw materials. A SOP for the handling and storage of ingredients, processing aids, and products must include measures to eliminate cross-contamination and commingling of vegan and non-vegan ingredients and processing aids; and clear identification and segregation of ingredients, processing aids, and finished products that are and are not vegan.

SOPs for cleaning and sanitation must include a risk assessment to identify potential contamination risks, a cleaning schedule, and a method for evaluating the efficacy of cleaning procedures, if the facility is not dedicated vegan. All employees at the manufacturing facility are required to receive vegan training. Other SOPs reviewed ensure there are procedures in place for traceability and recall, as well as complaint handling. Any product that has been subject to animal testing at any time, including but not limited to during research and development, is prohibited.

To maintain NSF’s vegan certification, operations that have products certified as vegan with NSF must undergo an annual review.

Q: You state in your certification protocol that evidence of vegan integrity could be a current third-party vegan certificate. Which third-party certifications would you consider legitimate and treat as evidence of vegan integrity?

A: This list may evolve through time, so as certificates are submitted, the certification program is evaluated to determine compliance with our vegan program.

Q: Are you able to identify any specific vegan certifications that you would accept when determining the “vegan integrity” of a product you have been asked to certify? If you accept another certification as evidence of vegan integrity, do you stop there and declare the product as NSF-certified, too, or do you conduct your own review as well before making your declaration? If you conduct your own review, then how is the determination of vegan integrity as declared by another certifier relevant?

A: The list of acceptable vegan certificates is likely to change over time, and vegan certificates are evaluated as they are submitted as evidence of compliance. Many products are multi-ingredient. NSF requires complete ingredient and processing aid information for all products seeking vegan certification. While an ingredient or processing aid may be approved because it is certified vegan, we would still require information to verify the compliance of all other ingredients and processing aids used in or on the final product seeking certification.

Q: Do you do onsite visits as part of the certification process, reviewing work logs while there and cross-referencing them with documents you had been previously sent by the company? If so, are the visits announced or unannounced?

A: No, we do not conduct onsite audits.

The contents of this blog posting, our website and our other publications, including Vegan Journal, are not intended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained from a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient information from company statements. It is impossible to be 100% sure about a statement, info can change, people have different views, and mistakes can be made. Please use your best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. To be sure, do further research or confirmation on your own.

For more ingredient information, see https://www.vrg.org/ingredients/index.php

To join The Vegetarian Resource Group and receive Vegan Journal, join at https://www.vrg.org/member/

This year the Chinese New Year falls on February 17th. Celebrate the year of the snake with delicious vegan dishes including Fried Lotus with Black Rice, Sesame Kale, and Bean Sprouts & Bamboo Stir-Fry with Udon Noodles. See: http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2013issue3/2013_issue3_chinese_cooking.php

Subscribe to Vegan Journal at https://www.vrg.org/member/

By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

For a long time, I’ve bookmarked recipes by Hetty Lui McKinnon, a regular contributor to New York Times Cooking. When I saw her book, Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor, on the list of new acquisitions from my local library, I requested it, thinking there might be a few vegan recipes I’d be interested in.

To my delight, Linger, is a mostly vegan cookbook. By my count, there are 94 recipes that either are vegan or could easily be made vegan and 8 that are vegetarian but not vegan. Each recipe is clearly identified as vegan and/or gluten-free and is accompanied by an enticing photo.

McKinnon’s book is organized around shared meals based on salads. Each of the 12 chapters features a collection of recipes that could be served together for a lunch or dinner party. Of course, the recipes also work well for smaller gatherings, say family dinners where you could make one or a couple of dishes.

An exciting feature of this book is McKinnon’s philosophy that anything can be a salad, or at least can inspire a salad. For example, Linger includes salads based on gnocchi and on dumplings, as well as salads inspired by falafel, French onion soup, and shawarma. Salads feature a variety of vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Each chapter also includes a dessert recipe such as Black Sesame Tofu “Basque” Cheesecake and Hong Kong Milk Tea Tres Leches. Both of these recipes are vegan.

So far, I’ve made Charred Gai Lan with Black-Eyed Peas and Chile Crisp Vinaigrette and Shaved Brussels Sprouts with Tofu Crumble, Shiitake and Hot Tahini. Both recipes were quick to prepare and super-flavorful. I appreciate McKinnon’s suggestions for substitutions which accompany each recipe. I didn’t have gai lan, so I successfully used her suggestion to substitute bok choy.

I’m looking forward to trying Hot-and-Sour Potato Salad; Mushroom, Seaweed, and White Bean Burger Salad; Kung Pao Cabbage with Tofu; Ginger-Roasted Kabocha with Black Rice and Ginger-Miso Dressing; and Cherry Tapioca Pudding, among others.

Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor (ISBN 9780593804193) is a 310-page hardcover book. It is published by Alfred A. Knopf and retails for $40.

photo by Rissa Miller

Chef Joseph Solar shares a wide variety of noodle dishes in his recipe piece in Vegan Journal. Start cooking Stuffed Shells with Basil, Golden Beet Japchae, Mushroom Marsala, Classic Vegan Pad Thai, or Vegan Carbonara!

Find the complete article here: https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2022issue4/2022_issue4_noodling_around.php

Subscribe to Vegan Journal in the USA only at https://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php

By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

Allulose is a simple sugar (monosaccharide) introduced to the U.S. market in the 2010s. In this article, The VRG takes a look at what food scientists and health researchers know about allulose and what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says about this natural sweetener.

Allulose characteristics

Found in extremely small quantities in a few foods including figs and raisins, allulose has the same chemical formula as fructose but in a different 3D arrangement. Research shows that under ordinary cooking conditions of certain food products, fructose is converted to allulose. Unlike fructose, however, allulose does not disrupt the gut microbiome. In fact, research using human cell lines shows allulose demonstrates gut protective effects as a prebiotic food source for probiotic bacteria in the intestinal tract.

On the other hand, high fructose consumption is associated with several chronic health conditions including metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular dysfunction. Allulose does not cause a rapid rise in blood glucose or insulin like table sugar (i.e., sucrose which is composed of equal parts of glucose and fructose) does. Moreover, allulose has been shown to decrease blood glucose levels after meals in both healthy adults and those with type 2 diabetes. According to the FDA in its 2020 Guidance on this simple sugar, allulose is “virtually unmetabolized by the human body” and excreted unchanged.

In taste tests, people find allulose to be almost as sweet as table sugar without a bitter aftertaste like other sugar substitutes. Technically, allulose is 70% as sweet as sucrose. It possesses a mouthfeel similar to sugar. When in granular form, it resembles table sugar. Allulose is not known to promote tooth decay like table sugar does.

Allulose: GRAS status

Despite being declared generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the FDA, the safety of allulose in humans is not well-established although a 2010 randomized, double-blind study with a small sample size showed no deleterious effects on several major metabolic biomarkers after 12 weeks of daily consumption.

However, the FDA had not conducted rigorous testing on allulose before issuing its GRAS determination. It should be pointed out that FDA does not regularly conduct safety tests on food ingredients before making GRAS declarations; rather, FDA often accepts industry-funded data as evidence of safety. Although some countries such as Japan and Mexico have approved allulose for food use, not all have. For instance, allulose is not approved for food use in Canada or Europe while safety testing is ongoing.

It’s noteworthy to point out that in a 2019 press release, FDA made this comment about allulose: “…This is the first time the FDA has stated its intent to allow a sugar to not be included as part of the total or added sugars declarations on labels.” However, the FDA also refers to its allulose guidance document linked to previously in this section when stating “…the FDA intends to exercise enforcement discretion to allow manufacturers to use 0.4 calories per gram of allulose when calculating the calories from allulose in a serving of a product. However, manufacturers must continue to include allulose in the total carbohydrates declaration.”

Allulose health studies

There are a few human studies that show the benefits of allulose. For example, a 2023 study indicated that allulose may help prevent obesity and atherosclerosis and lower type 2 diabetes risk. A 2018 study revealed that overweight and obese adults on allulose supplementation showed a significant decrease in both body mass index (BMI) and total abdominal and subcutaneous fat compared to a placebo group. Another study from 2024 showed allulose did not affect gut microbial diversity, which is believed to be important to maintain human health. By contrast, small quantities of some artificial sweeteners (AS) have been shown to damage the gut microbiome, although other research shows certain AS has no substantial effect on it (Conz et al. 2023).

Commercial source of allulose

Commercial production of allulose is from corn without any animal-derived processing aids according to four manufacturers or distributors contacted by The VRG. These companies were Tate & Lyle, Icon Foods, Apura Ingredients, and North Central Companies. Based on this research, we classify allulose as a vegan food ingredient.

Baking with allulose

Allulose tends to brown at high temperatures, so reduce the oven temperature to 315-320ºF and extend baking time by 15% when using allulose according to the Supplyside Food and Beverage Journal. Allulose cannot be used as a sugar source for fermenting yeast in bread baking.

Allulose is available in granulated, powder, and liquid forms.

For more ingredient information, see https://www.vrg.org/ingredients/index.php

Support ingredient research and vegan education. Join The Vegetarian Resource Group at https://www.vrg.org/member/

The contents of this posting, our website and our other publications, including Vegan Journal, are not intended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained from a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient information from company statements. It is impossible to be 100% sure about a statement, info can change, people have different views, and mistakes can be made. Please use your best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. To be sure, do further research or confirmation on your own.

photo by Hannah Kaminsky

Olga Kouloufakos serves up a variety of Mediterranean vegan recipes in an issue of Vegan Journal. You can prepare Stuffed Tomatoes; Vegan Meatballs (based on mushrooms and oats); Moussaka; Pasta with Chickpea & Mushroom Pesto; and Lasagna.

Read her entire article here: https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2024issue3/2024_issue3_mediterranean_mainstays.php

To subscribe to Vegan Journal, visit www.vrg.org/member

photo from Freepik

Nava Atlas shares a variety of dishes featuring leeks in an issue of Vegan Journal. Find these vegan recipes: Leek and Potato Soup with Watercress; Warm Leek and Potato Salad; Sautéed Leeks with Fennel and Mushrooms; Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Leeks and Walnuts; Persian-Style Spinach and Leeks with Black-Eyed Peas; and Simmered Tofu with Leeks and Tomatoes.

Read the entire article here: https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2023issue2/2023_issue2_love_leeks.php

To subscribe to Vegan Journal, visit www.vrg.org/member

Due to the generosity of anonymous donors, The Vegetarian Resource Group each year will award one $10,000 and several $5,000 college scholarships to graduating U.S. high school students who have promoted veganism in their schools and/or communities. Entries may only be sent by students graduating from high school in SPRING 2026

We will accept applications emailed or postmarked on or before FEBRUARY 20, 2026. Early submission is encouraged.

Applicants will be judged on having shown compassion, courage, and a strong commitment to promoting a peaceful world through a vegan diet/lifestyle. Payment will be made to the student’s college (U.S. based only). Winners of the scholarships give permission to release their names to the media. Applications and essays become property of The Vegetarian Resource Group. We may ask finalists for more information. Scholarship winners are contacted by e-mail or telephone. Please look at your e-mail.

If you would like to donate to additional scholarships or internships, go to www.vrg.org/donate

Applications

For information on applying, visit: https://www.vrg.org/student/scholar or call (410) 366-8343 or email [email protected].

This contest is sponsored by The Vegetarian Resource Group/Vegan Journal, PO Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203.

photo from Freepik

by Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 was signed into law on January 14, 2026. Of interest to vegans, this act permits schools to offer all children “nondairy beverages that are nutritionally equivalent to fluid milk and meet the nutritional standards established by the Secretary (which shall, among other requirements to be determined by the Secretary, include fortification of calcium, protein, vitamin A, and vitamin D to levels found in cow’s milk).” Schools are not required to offer all children nondairy beverages but are permitted to do this. In the past, a request from a parent, legal guardian, or physician was required for a school to provide a plant milk to a child without a disability.

USDA, the department of the U.S. government that administers the National School Lunch Program issued a document detailing the requirements for implementing this act. With regard to plant milks, if a school food authority chooses to offer fortified plant milks to all students, a cup of the plant milk must contain at least 276 mg of calcium, 8 grams of protein, 500 IU of vitamin A, 100 IU of vitamin D, 24 mg of magnesium, 222 mg of phosphorus, 349 mg of potassium, 0.44 mg of riboflavin, and 1.1 mcg of vitamin B12. The milk can be flavored or unflavored. The document goes on to say, “offering nondairy beverages to all students to meet the fluid milk requirements at lunch [note that no mention is made of school breakfast programs] is an option, not a requirement.”

Schools that choose to offer plant milks to all students are no longer required to notify the State agency that plant milks are being served.

Schools that do not choose to offer plant milks to all students must follow the earlier process of a requiring a request from a student’s parent or guardian, a State licensed healthcare professional, or a registered dietitian that identifies the reason for the substitute for students without disabilities. The school is then allowed (but not required) to provide that student a plant milk that meets the nutritional requirements described earlier. A school food authority must inform the State agency if any schools choose to offer fluid milk substitutes for non-disability reasons.

Schools are required to provide a substitute for cow’s milk for students whose disability restricts their diet. Previously, a statement from a State licensed healthcare professional or a registered dietitian was required. Now, a parent or legal guardian may provide a written statement requesting a fluid milk substitute (such as a plant milk) for a child whose disability restricts their diet.

It will be interesting to see how many schools will offer all children “nondairy beverages that are nutritionally equivalent to fluid milk” especially since these products are often more expensive and the act does not provide additional funds to cover the costs of offering plant milks to all children.

For more information about plant milks in school lunch programs see:

Congress Approves Changes to the National School Lunch Program That Could Make It Easier to Get “Nutritionally Equivalent” Plant Milks

What are Some of the Brands of Plant Milk that Can Be Used in the National School Lunch Program?

photo from Freepik

Have you ever noticed how many different types of rice there are? Chef Nancy Berkoff’s article The Long and Short of It – Meet Red, Black, Green, Gold, and Purple Rice! explains what the differences are and how to prepare vegan dishes using a variety of rice. Enjoy Sofrito with Carolina Gold Rice; Spanakorizo; Walnut & Wild Rice Salad; Cashew Coconut Purple Rice; Green Herbed Pilaf; Mango Sticky Rice; and Red Rice Pilaf.

Find the entire article here: https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2021issue2/2021_issue2_long_short_of_it.php

Subscribe to Vegan Journal at https://www.vrg.org/member/