Vegan foods

Foods that fit a vegan diet — vegetarian foods excluding meat, eggs, milk, butter, cheese, and every other animal-derived ingredient. The category spans naturally plant-based staples (fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts) and formulated analogues that mimic dairy and meat using soy, pea, oat, coconut, and mycoprotein bases. Building convincing vegan foods is technically demanding: replacing casein’s emulsification, egg’s foaming, or meat’s fibrous texture calls for hydrocolloids, plant proteins, and flavour systems. Labels must clearly signal the absence of animal ingredients while flagging allergens such as soy and nuts; ‘vegan’ claims face growing regulation against misleading consumers.