If you’re grinding away at the gym and in need of hydration plus vitamins and antioxidants, you may be tempted to reach for a BODYARMOR sports drink. But as a vegan, it can be hard to figure out whether all those hard-to-pronounce ingredients are truly free of animal products or processes that involve animal cruelty.
But the good news is that BODYARMOR is indeed vegan as it’s made primarily from water, coconut water, and natural fruit flavors. It’s also gluten-free and doesn’t contain any artificial flavors or colors.
Below, we’ll examine the specifics of the vegan-friendliness of BODYARMOR drinks by scrutinizing their ingredients, production processes, and company values.
What’s Really in Bodyarmor?
To start, we need to dissect the ingredient list. While it looks intimidating, it’s the only way to ensure that a product is truly vegan.
In a typical bottle of the original BODYARMOR sports drink, the main ingredients are:
- Filtered water
- Pure cane sugar
- Coconut water concentrate
- Citric acid
- Dipotassium phosphate (Electrolyte)
- Vegetable juice concentrate (for color)
- Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C)
- Magnesium oxide (Electrolyte)
The company has been in business for 12 years and there’s no sign that they’re hiding anything about what’s in their products. So, it looks like vegans can drink this without worrying about it not being animal-free.
Are All Flavors of BODYARMOR Sports Drinks Vegan?
It’s important to note that BODYARMOR comes in multiple flavors, including Blackout Berry, Fruit Punch, Orange Mango, Blue Raspberry, Cherry Lime, Pineapple Coconut, Strawberry Banana, Strawberry Grape, Tropical Punch, and even Watermelon Strawberry.
The question now is whether all of these flavors are vegan. And it looks like they are.
Let’s take the Blue Raspberry flavor’s ingredients, for example. It contains the following vitamins:
- B3 (in the form of niacinamide)
- B5 (in the form of calcium D-Pantothenate)
- B9 (in the form of folic acid)
- Retinyl palmitate (which is often derived from animals, but in this case is likely derived from soy oil)
- Vitamin E (in synthetic form, as alpha-Tocopheryl acetate)
- B6 (as Pyridoxine hydrochloride, which is either plant or lab-derived)
- B12 (in the form of a synthetic ingredient called Cyanocobalamin)
This flavor also has the electrolyte zinc oxide.
None of these products are derived from animals. So it’s safe to say BODYARMOR goes out of its way to make vegan sports drinks.
Is BODYARMOR Lyte Vegan?
BODYARMOR Lyte is the low-calorie, no sugar added version of the sports drink, also known for having no additional sweeteners.
This product comes in nine different flavors, but let’s look at Peach Mango for a hint about the vegan-friendliness of the overall product. In addition to filtered water, erythritol, and coconut water concentrate, its ingredients include:
- Citric acid
- Ascorbic acid
- Gum arabic
- Stevia rebaudiana leaf extract
- Natural peach mango flavor (in addition to other “natural” flavorings that go unnamed)
- Niacinamide
- Guar gum
- Pyridoxine hydrochloride
- Folic acid
- Retinyl palmitate (again, likely derived from soy oil)
- Cyanocobalamin
- Calcium D-Pantothenate
- Ester Gum
- alpha-Tocopheryl acetate
It also includes the following electrolytes:
- Dipotassium phosphate
- Magnesium oxide
- Zinc oxide
And the product gets its color from a combination of vegetable juice concentrate and beta-apo-8’Carotenal.
Is BODYARMOR Edge Vegan?
There are four flavors of the caffeinated version of BODYARMOR, called BODYARMOR Edge. Caffeine is the only ingredient in these drinks that we haven’t already listed, making this drink vegan as well.
What Questions Remain About BODYARMOR’s Vegan-Friendliness?
BODYARMOR is fortified with an array of vitamins. These vitamins, while naturally found in various animal and plant sources, are typically synthesized in a lab when added to processed foods and drinks.
Likewise, the colorings used in BODYARMOR are derived from vegetable juice concentrate, aligning with the vegan philosophy of using plant-based sources wherever possible.
However, the mention of “natural flavors” can be somewhat ambiguous.
In the food industry, natural flavors can come from plant or animal sources. Most companies, however, will specify if their natural flavors are animal-derived, so we can assume BODYARMOR’s natural flavors are plant-based.
Does BODYARMOR Use a Vegan Production Process?
It’s hard to know if all elements of the production process of all of BODYAMOR’s ingredients are vegan-friendly.
It’s not a question that the company (or its parent company, Coca-Cola) addressed directly on their websites. However, they do specifically note that the product is Kosher, gluten-free, and soy-free.
When it comes to sweeteners, BODYARMOR uses both pure cane sugar and erythritol.
Pure cane sugar can be a point of contention within the vegan community due to its processing methods. Some cane sugar is processed using bone char from animals to achieve its white color. However, this practice is less common nowadays.
While the ingredient list might appear to be vegan at a glance, cross-contamination with non-vegan ingredients is a concern in factories that process a variety of products.
However, many companies today are acknowledging this concern and taking steps to minimize or eliminate the risk of cross-contamination.
Summary
Based on the listed ingredients and the available information, BODARMOR sports drinks are considered vegan-friendly.
That goes for their regular sports water flavors as well as the low-calorie Lyte version and the caffeinated BODYARMOR Edge.
However, strict vegans may want to contact the company directly to ensure their entire production process is cruelty-free.
