When you are vegan, you know that these cookies are vegan. Trust me.

That a cookie that has butter in the name is vegan seems like false advertising, doesn't it?

Will someone please explain the appeal of Oreo cookies to me. They taste like what they are: stale cookies with Crisco between them. They're just plain disgusting! It's like I'll never understand the neat cultish appeal of Girl Scout cookies. People really do enjoy eating those things?

Strangely, the only store bought cookies I do have fond memories of are Hydrox (of which Oreo was a cheap knockoff of) and McDonaldland cookies. The Ikea alphabet cookies are pretty good too but I rarely (read almost never) buy store bought cookies.

I thank/blame my mother for the whole homemade cookie thing. She was a stay at home mom and never bought us store bought cookies except on very rare occasions and even then we preferred the homemade stuff.

Once I figure out how to *easily* and cheaply make homemade Saltine crackers (which I doubt will ever happen) I can rid my pantry of anything from Nabisco. :-)

The "butter" in Nutter Butter refers to peanut butter.

@A_DIFABIO: thanks, makes more sense now.
@Battra92: I never understood it either. I was so disappointed when I first tried them. Some of the worst biscuits I have ever eaten (and I have eaten some pretty bad ones in small Chinese towns where you couldn't get any international brands nor the better Chinese brands.

I have no problems with Oreos, and actually always thought Hydrox were the knock-offs...go figure.

On another note, since when are Pop Tarts and fruit pies considered "cookies"?

I don't think Babycakes cupcakes "happen" to be vegan--they were specifically created to be both vegan + gluten-free. : )

Instead of placing a sassy / nit-picky comment in here, i'll just say thanks for the info :)

They may have no animal products in them but what about all the other nasties on the label? As a vegan for health reasons I'd say no thank you. I think a cookie made with real butter and unrefined sugar would probably be healthier.

As an omnivore who sometimes hosts vegans, thank you. This is quite helpful :)

Hmm, I love me some Babycakes, but I promise you that they are famous for their VEGAN cupcakes. When I want honest to god cupcakes I go elsewhere, but I do love their spelt tops!

Sheesh. The only reason the products above are vegan is that fake and super processed food like shortening is cheaper than the real thing.

You're right, Judiau! Oreo icing used to be made with beef suet (tallow... aka fat!) before using super-processed factory crap... Sure, they weren't vegan friendly then. But they tasted a hell of a lot better, and I bet were more sustainable overall than they are now!

Also, Lorna Doone, which is in fact a cookie.

Also weirdly vegan are many Pillsbury bread products. PETA has a list of accidentally vegan products.

Sometimes vegans like to eat nasty things, too. I don't think The Kitchn is advocating for people to rush out and buy Oreos, but it's nice to know that there are some familiar favourites out there that are vegan friendly.

@Mandoos02 - your comment was more of a sassy/nitpicky one than a thank-you.

A warning for people in or visiting the UK though: weirdly enough Oreos aren't even vegetarian here, let alone vegan. They contain whey powder processed with rennet. Apparently they are working to change this, but I find it pretty weird that they are (almost famously) vegan in the US but contain whey powder in the UK in the first place. A lot of people in the UK assumed they used the same recipe as the US and would be suitable for vegans/vegetarians and were sorely disappointed.

i am surprise!!! divine!

I used to love the brown sugar + cinnamon pop-tarts until I realized they had gelatin in them, then I stopped eating them. Glad to see the unfrosted ones do not. Which makes me wonder - I always assumed the gelatin was for the filling... why would they need gelatin in the frosting??

@Kaz, Maybe it helps with the texture? It IS kind of weirdly thick for icing. The filling should have enough pectin in it to stay put as is since it's basically jam. The unfrosted ones are super hard to find in my area, though.

@tiamat - I realized a while after posting my comment that I never actually toast Pop-Tarts, so I imagine it may have something to do with keeping the icing together after toasting...

This helps explain why I've met so many fat vegans!

I live in Austria and although some stores carry Oreos here, I had my first one when I moved to the US for a year. I was so disappointed! But then I discovered the Golden Oreos and loved them, still do, and although I am a vegetarian who is really picky when it comes to unhealthy or refined ingrediences, about twice a year I get someone to bring them with for me. And then I enjoy every single one. Aside from that, I prefer baking my own cookies, so I know what's in there AND I can pick whatever I feel like baking. YAY for baking!

@KAZ, yeah but the only way the brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts are good is slathered with butter!!! So you still lose! ;^)

@KAZ (TOASTED with butter -- I hadn't noticed your untoasted comment before...)

Im with @kaityf... I am also a vegan and wouldn't touch these cookies with a 10ft pole, yuk! Too many nasties on the label for Oreo especially, I always assumed vegans stayed away from processed foods, the Oreo cookie has High Fructose Corn Syrup which is man mad and one of the most lethal toxins in food today. The commercials you see on TV will have you thinking otherwise...

and when you're not vegan or gluten free, you *know* that baby cakes cupcakes are both. Yuck. One dietary restriction at a time, please.

oreos definitely did not used to be vegan because kosher houses always had hydrox instead... or can it be vegan and not kosher?

mmmmm. Oreos.

Since I don't particularly like any of the cookies on the list, it confirms my opinion that there is no such thing as tasty vegan baked goods.

I try and avoid a lot of processed food but on more than one occasion I have found myself at the airport famished and bored and thankful for a potato chip or oreo that "just happens" to be vegan. If I'm out to impress my non-vegan friends on how amazing vegan food can be however I am more likely to whip up my own treats such as the vegan chocolate mousse recipe from here which is fail-proof and always a huge hit. http://www.scribd.com/doc/327358/Vegetarian-Starter-Kit

My kid has life-threatening allergies to milk, egg and peanut- there are a lot of treats he cannot eat and he cannot indulge in things like the ice cream truck/shop, chocolate candies, etc. etc. He has to eat a lot of food from scratch. So for him, these kind of packaged/processed vegan treats are like a dream- makes him feel like a normal kid to be able to eat an Oreo. I'm happy to oblige, disgusting as they may be. :)

Wow, what a bunch of complainers. This is a fun, informative post, and it clearly acknowledges that these are not health foods chock full of natural ingredients. I've been vegan for about 15 years now, and I knew some of those items didn't contain animal products, but not all of them. I think Oreos in the US did have gelatin for a long time, and Hydrox were the vegan/kosher equivalent, but I did notice recently that Oreos had changed their formula and are now vegan. I heard a radio story recently about the formula for Oreos being different from country to country, since the "traditional" American taste doesn't translate well to all palates (I believe they focused particularly on all the different flavors of Oreos that were available in China), so those in other countries should probably check the ingredients to be sure if their Oreos are also vegan.

This list does not contain any foods that I would care to eat on a regular basis, but I will tell you that it can be very helpful when you are on a road trip or happen to be in the middle of nowhere and you have to count on convenience stores for sustenance. I will also say that, having been vegan through college, when my checking account sometimes dropped into the double digits (as in, I have $38 to pay all my expenses for the next two weeks), I didn't have the facilities for baking, and I certainly wasn't able to buy my groceries at Whole Foods, so being able to pick up a small treat like this now and then was nice.

Oh, and ditto to Chococat--my kids eat all vegetarian, mostly vegan. We try not to make it too much of a hardship for them because we don't want them to resent it (we do it by choice, not due to allergies or whatever), and they appreciate being able to buy some mass market junk food every once in awhile. Going into a drug store and being able to pick a single serving package of cookies or a small candy (again, usually done on long drives as a way to improve the road-trip-with-young-kids experience) is a rare and memorable thing for them.

this post epitomizes why I despise veganism as a worldview: these products are garbage and nothing on god's green earth will convince me that there is anything ethical about consuming them--ethics being the top reason vegans claim to value their own existence. These products may not incite complaints among omnivores because we all know we're eating garbage when we eat them, but I HATE claims that a desert tastes so good that you can't tell it's not vegan. Do you not get that you are actually telling the world that you know you are compromising your own pleasure for your stupid rules when you make such claims!?! The only reason to eat such nonsense is that it is an indulgence. Why would you indulge yourself in something that does not hit the sweet spot of decadence!? Total BS. People who eat real food can tell when something is not made with butter or other real food products even if they don't go into hysterics when they eat something that isn't made that way. And anyone concerned with making the world a better place knows that alternatives for food products designed to be cheap, tasteless, high sugar, totally processed, and chuck full of additives, derivatives and preservatives and always available, and never go off are not products that should be lauded even if they technically fit into a a set of fundamentalist rules.

Goodness! I didn't know that vegan-ism was a moral & aesthetic code, complete with Official Enforcers. I thought it was just a set of standards for what to eat/what not to eat.

Guess I've been schooled. AT, I hope your collective editorial skin is thick enough to withstand all the hellfire and brimstone -- I'd love to see more posts like this.