Soy Sauce Tends to Be Vegan

Generally speaking, soy sauce should be vegan. Unfortunately, interested individuals don't have perfect insight into every single one of the ingredients that go into such products, meaning that they can't always be sure.

What Is Soy Sauce?

Soy sauce is a liquid condiment that started seeing use in China before spread to other countries. Its predecessor seems to have been a way to stretch the supply of salt by fermenting fish with soybeans. Later, this concoction separated into soy sauce as well as fish sauce.

What Goes Into Soy Sauce?

Nowadays, soy sauce tends to be made out of water, wheat, soybeans, salt, and some kind of preservative. Sometimes, soy sauces will include fish-based ingredients. However, interested individuals should have no problem picking these out. As such, it is easy to see why soy sauce can be considered vegan in most cases.

Why Isn't Soy Sauce Always Vegan?

Having said that, soy sauce often uses lactic acid in the fermentation process. Most of the time, lactic acid comes from plant-based sources, so this is fine. Unfortunately, it is possible for lactic acid to come from animal-based sources instead, which is a bigger issue. Besides this, soy sauce manufacturers might also have practices that are incompatible with a vegan lifestyle, which is another thing that interested individuals should watch out for.