7 grocery store behaviors that instantly expose you as vegan

Last week at Trader Joe's, I examined a box of crackers for three full minutes under fluorescent lights like I was authenticating a Vermeer. A concerned shopper asked if I'd lost a contact. No, just hunting for whey powder in microscopic font. That's when it hit me: we vegans have tells. Massive ones.

We navigate grocery stores like spies in enemy territory, convinced we're invisible. But we're about as subtle as someone wearing a "Kale Yeah!" shirt to a steakhouse. These aren't conscious choices—they're reflexes from years of discovering that innocent-looking foods contain beaver anal glands (yes, castoreum is real). Here are the dead giveaways.

1. The ingredient list forensics

Spot someone flipping straight to ingredients without glancing at the front? Found your vegan. Marketing doesn't exist for us. "Heart Healthy!" means nothing. "Natural!" is fiction. Truth lives in that microscopic paragraph of chemical warfare.

I once studied pasta sauce so long an employee offered me reading glasses. Reality was worse—I was googling "mono- and diglycerides vegan?" in aisle seven. We know more additives than chemistry postdocs. L-cysteine? Hair or feathers. Carmine? Crushed beetles. Our camera rolls contain more ingredient lists than human faces.

2. The dairy section sprint

Nobody moves through dairy like a vegan with somewhere to be. We develop this specific gait—normal everywhere else, Olympic race-walking past cheese and yogurt. It's not moral superiority. It's survival.

After years without dairy, the smell hits different. What seemed normal now feels barnyard-adjacent. We hold our breath past aged cheeses like kids passing graveyards. Yet we'll spend ten minutes at the plant-milk wall, comparing oat brands like sommeliers, debating Oatly versus Minor Figures foam quality.

3. The nutritional yeast situation

Anyone buying nutritional yeast in bulk? Vegan. Nobody else knows this exists. We guard sources like state secrets. "Where's yours from?" is code for "you're one of us?"

My cashier once asked if I owned a health store. Nope—I just coat everything in deactivated yeast like a condiment-obsessed child. We swear it tastes like cheese, though it definitely tastes like feet with B vitamins. But those nutrients won't absorb themselves.

4. The produce section photo shoot

Only vegans photograph vegetables like proud parents. Can't help ourselves. Perfect rainbow chard? Instagram gold. Watermelon radishes? Pure art.

We spend twenty minutes selecting avocados we'll inevitably miss at peak ripeness. We buy unpronounceable vegetables—kohlrabi, romanesco—because they're pretty. Our crispers are graveyards of good intentions. Still, we treat produce sections like personal galleries while others just grab bananas and flee.

5. The bread investigation

Checking bread for milk powder? Peak vegan. Bread should be flour, water, yeast, salt. Simple. Yet dairy infiltrates everything. Even tortillas betray us.

I've developed bread radar. Ezekiel? Safe. Wonder? Suspicious. Artisanal sourdough? Probably fine, still checking. We know which brands add milk to hamburger buns (why?) and which bagels hide L-cysteine. Others grab and go. We're running full background checks.

6. The hummus fortress

Hummus volume directly correlates with vegan tenure. Year one: one container. Year five: structural pyramids. Hummus becomes emotional support food.

When Sabra recalled products, I genuinely panicked. We buy tahini pretending we'll make our own. It sits unopened while we grab another four-pack. We've tried every flavor—classic, red pepper, "everything bagel" (blasphemy). Brand loyalty rivals sports fandoms. We map stores by hummus quality.

7. The checkout performance

The moment arrives: explaining your cart to nobody. "Having friends over," we announce as cashiers scan our fourth kale bunch. They didn't ask. They don't care. But we need justification.

We arrange conveyor items strategically—produce clustered, plant milks aligned, frozen Amy's hidden beneath respectability. Ready to defend everything. Vegan ice cream? "Actually delicious." Eight-dollar cashew cheese? "Special occasion." Cashiers want to go home. We're prepared with tempeh TED talks.

Final thoughts

These aren't quirks—they're adaptive behaviors in a world where milk powder hides everywhere and "natural flavors" could mean fruit or beaver gland secretions. We've evolved to navigate foods that put animals where they don't belong. (Salt and vinegar chips with lactose? Really?)

The irony? We think we're discrete. Undercover. Smooth operators identifying safe foods undetected. Meanwhile, we're reading labels with magnifying glasses while mumbling about casein.

But here's the thing: nobody cares. That cashier isn't judging your nooch mountain. Shoppers aren't timing your dairy sprint. We're all just trying to eat in this complicated world. Though if you spot someone photographing produce while buying six tubs of hummus and investigating bread like Sherlock Holmes—say hi. We should probably be friends.