Ah, Wheat Thins: a favorite cracker throughout America and a perfect dipping tool for enjoying some tasty spreads, sauces, or even salsas. While Wheat Thins seem to be perfectly vegan-friendly choices for snacking or as an appetizer, things are often more complicated than they seem on the surface.
The majority of Wheat Thins crackers are vegan-friendly because they don’t include any non-vegan ingredients. Also, there’s no evidence that the maker of Wheat Thins uses cruel or unsustainable practices to create its products. Therefore, you can safely snack on Wheat Thins to your heart’s content. Another healthy vegan alternative to Wheat Thins is Blue Diamond Artisan Nut Thins.
That said, there are a couple of Wheat Thins varieties to watch out for since they do include problematic ingredients. Let’s take a closer look at Wheat Thins and break down what makes most of their crackers vegan safe.
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Ingredients to Watch Out for in Your Wheat Thins
While the majority of Wheat Thins are vegan-friendly, you’ll still want to watch out for a couple of non-vegan ingredients. Several Wheat Thins varieties, including Smoky BBQ Wheat Thins or Honey Mustard Wheat Thins, include these problematic ingredients.
Honey
Naturally, Honey is not a vegan-friendly ingredient as it must be harvested from bees. Bees use honey as a food source and the hives often rely upon it to survive the more difficult months of the year, such as during winter.
While it’s true that many beekeepers will practice sustainable honey harvesting, there’s no getting around that taking honey away from bees does take away the food that they worked for and that they need to grow their hives.
Many vegans don’t consider honey harvested sustainably to be non-vegan. Others do. Ultimately, this boils down to your own interpretation of veganism and whether you think harvesting an animal byproduct crosses the line into animal cruelty or exploitation.
It should be noted that honey isn’t an animal product by itself (i.e. bees or other animals aren’t actually used to create the honey, merely pollen from flowers).
Honey Solids
As with honey, honey solids are not vegan-friendly as they are made by taking honey from bees and adding sugars or other synthetic additives to change the texture and flavor of the resulting product.
Once more, whether this disqualifies Wheat Thins as vegan-friendly or not depends on your interpretation of veganism.
Sugar
Last but not least, many Wheat Thins also include sugar. But sugar is a plant-based product, right? So how can it not be vegan-friendly?
It’s potentially problematic because lots of sugar is processed using bone char: charred cattle bones taken from slaughtered cows in the meat industry. Bone char helps to filter the sugar into a very finely grained product. But because the bone charring method requires the use of bones from once-living animals, any sugar made in this way is no longer vegan safe.
Unfortunately, Wheat Thins hasn’t revealed whether the sugar in some of its crackers is made using bone char or not. Because of this, any Wheat Thins variety that includes sugar should be viewed skeptically at the very least.
That said, many vegans don’t worry too much about sugar included in their snack products as it’s almost impossible to know whether a given food’s sugar was processed with animal bones or not.
Wheat Thins Nutrition Facts
As mentioned earlier, there are lots of Wheat Thins types that are vegan safe. Let’s take a look at the nutritional facts for these vegan crackers so you know which ones to pick up the next time you go to the store.
Original Wheat Thins
The ingredients in Original Wheat Thins are:
- Whole grain wheat flour
- Unbleached enriched flour (including wheat flour, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, folic acid, and niacin)
- Soybean oil
- Sugar
- Cornstarch
- Malt syrup from barley and corn
- Invert sugar
- Salt
- Monoglycerides
- Leavening (baking soda and/or calcium phosphate)
- Vegetable colors (turmeric oleoresin and annatto extract)
Nutritional Facts:
- 140 cal per serving
- 5 g fat or 8% DV
- 200 mg sodium or 9% DV
- 22 g carbohydrate or 7% DV
- 2 g fiber or 7% DV
- 5 g sugar or 8% DV
- 2 g protein
- 20 mg calcium
- 7 mg iron
- 90 mg potassium
Hint of Salt Wheat Thins
The ingredients in Hint of Salt Wheat Thins include:
- Whole grain wheat flour
- Soybean oil
- Sugar
- Cornstarch
- Malt syrup from barley and corn
- Salt
- Invert sugar
- Vegetable color
- BHT
Nutritional Facts:
- 140 cal per serving
- 5 g fat or 6.41% DV
- 55 mg sodium or 2.39% DV
- 22 mg carbohydrate or 8% DV
- 3 g fiber or 10.71% DV
- 4 g sugar
- 2 g protein
- 10 mg calcium
- 9 mg iron
Reduced-Fat Wheat Thins
The ingredients for Reduced Fat Wheat Thins include:
- Whole grain wheat flour
- Sugar
- Soybean oil
- Malt syrup from corn and barley
- Cornstarch
- Salt
- Invert sugar
- Leavening from baking soda and/or calcium phosphate
- BHT
- Vegetable color
Nutritional Facts:
- 130 cal per serving
- 5 g fat or 5% DV
- 2 g polyunsaturated fat
- 230 mg sodium or 10% DV
- 60 mg potassium or 2% DV
- 22 g carbohydrate or 7% DV
- 2 g fiber or 8% DV
- 4 g sugar
- 2 g protein
- 2% calcium
- 4% iron
Multigrain Wheat Thins
The ingredients in Multigrain Wheat Thins include:
- Whole grain wheat flour
- Unbleached enriched flour (wheat flour, reduced iron, niacin, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)
- Soybean oil
- Whole grain barley flakes
- Sugar
- Whole grain triticale
- Whole-grain rye
- Whole grain millet
- Whole wheat
- Salt
- Molasses
- Whole grain rolled oats
- Soy lecithin
- Onion powder
- Learning with calcium phosphate and/or baking soda
- Cornstarch
- BHT
It should be noted that this variety of Wheat Thins includes soy lecithin. While lecithin is often a risky ingredient for vegans since it can be taken from animal sources, this lecithin is distinctly harvested from soybeans, so it is vegan-friendly.
Nutritional Facts:
- 130 cal per serving
- 4 g fat or 5% DV
- 190 mg sodium or 8% DV
- 73 mg potassium
- 22 g carbohydrate or 8% DV
- 2 g fiber or 7% DV
- 3 g sugar
- 2 g protein
- 95 mg iron or 6% DV
Sundried Tomato & Basil Wheat Thins
The ingredients in Sundried Tomato & Basil Wheat Thins include:
- Whole grain wheat flour
- Soybean oil
- Sugar
- Salt
- Cornstarch
- Malt syrup from barley and corn
- Invert sugar
- Leavening from baking soda and/or calcium phosphate
- Regular and sun-dried tomato powder
- Onion powder
- Spices including basil
- Garlic powder
- Dried red and green bell peppers
- Vegetable color
- Yeast extract
- Turmeric oleoresin
- Paprika extract
- Natural flavors
- Caramel color
- Sulfur dioxide and/or sodium metabisulphite
Nutritional Facts:
- 140 cal
- 5 g fat or 8% DV
- 160 mg sodium or 7% DV
- 21 g carbohydrate or 7% DV
- 2 g fiber or 8% DV
- 4 g sugar or 8% DV
- 2 g protein
- 30 mg calcium or 2% DV
- 1 mg iron
- 134 mg potassium
Cracked Pepper & Olive Oil Wheat Thins
The ingredients included in Cracked Pepper & Olive Oil Wheat Thins include:
- Whole grain wheat flour
- Soybean oil
- Cornstarch
- Malt syrup from barley and corn
- Sugar
- Salt
- Refiner’s syrup
- Dried green bell peppers
- Onion powder
- Spices including parsley
- Leavening from baking soda and/or calcium phosphate
- Citric acid
- Garlic powder
- Distilled vinegar
- Vegetable color
- Natural flavors
Nutritional Facts:
- 140 cal per serving
- 5 g fat or 8% DV
- 180 mg sodium or 8% DV
- 22 g carbohydrate or 7% DV
- 2 g fiber or 8% DV
- 4 g sugar
- 2 g protein
- 1 mg iron
- 30 mg calcium
- 121 mg potassium
Healthy Vegan Alternatives to Wheat Thins
Simple Mills Almond Flour Crackers (Fine Ground Sea Salt)
Last but not least, consider these delicious crackers from Simple Mills. As their name suggests, they are made from almond flour. Not only does this make them vegan-friendly, but it also makes them gluten-free and paleo-friendly. Packed with healthy, non-GMO ingredients, they’re perfect baked crackers for munching on by themselves or with your favorite toppings and sides.
Ingredients:
- Nuts and seed flour blend (including almonds, flax seeds, and sunflower seeds)
- Tapioca starch
- Cassava flour
- Organic sunflower oil
- Sea salt
- Organic onion
- Organic garlic
- Rosemary extract
Nutritional Facts:
- 150 cal per serving
- 8 g fat or 10% DV
- 180 mg sodium or 8% DV
- 18 g carbohydrate or 7% DV
- 2 g fiber or 7% DV
- 3 g protein
Blue Diamond Artisan Nut Thins
Blue Diamond’s Nut Thins are, as their name suggests, made from nuts rather than any gluten-based products. These snacking crackers are great since they are packed with omega-3 fatty acids and a variety of other nutrients and vitamins.
Its ingredients are:
- Brown rice flour
- Almonds
- Potato starch
- Brown rice
- Flax seeds
- Sea salt
- Safflower oil
- Natural flavors
Nutritional Facts:
- 130 cal per serving
- 5 g fat or 5% DV
- 135 mg sodium or 6% DV
- 22 g carbohydrate or 7% DV
- 2 g fiber or 7% DV
- 3 g protein
Good & Gather Gluten-Free Multigrain Rice Crackers
Good & Gather also makes an excellent gluten-free stacking cracker. These multigrain Rice crackers don’t have any gluten-based products and are comprised entirely of non-GMO ingredients.
Its ingredients are:
- White rice meal
- Potato starch
- Rice bran
- Safflower oil
- Quinoa
- Sesame seeds
- Sorghum flour
- Millet
- Flax seeds
- Sea salt
- Amaranth
Nutritional Facts:
- 130 cal per serving
- 5 g fat or 3% DV
- 130 mg sodium or 6% DV
- 24 g carbohydrate or 9% DV
- 1 g fiber or 4% DV
- 2 g protein
Final Thoughts
All in all, vegans can rest assured that most Wheat Thins are perfectly fine snacking crackers for sharing at a party or for enjoying solo with Tostitos Salsa (a vegan-friendly salsa choice) while watching TV on the couch. Just be careful not to select any of the non-vegan Wheat Thins varieties and you’ll be set.
Related Questions
Are Wheat Thins healthy?
Wheat Thins are snacking crackers and are therefore not exactly super healthy. However, they don’t have a ton of salt or sugar relative to other snacks, especially those with synthetic additives. They are about as healthy as you can get with snacking chips.
Are Wheat Thins plant-based?
Yes, as they don’t use any animal ingredients. Therefore, they could qualify for a whole food plant-based diet depending on how you practice your diet.