Answer: It depends. The answer is yes and no – except for a few, most Halls Cough Drops may not be vegan.
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Are Halls Cough Drops Vegan?
Cough drops that have menthol as an active ingredient and a couple of artificial flavors and colors may seem so vegan. But, the obvious might not be real. Of all the Halls flavors, Honey Lemon Flavor Cough Drops are non-vegan because of the honey. The rest have menthol as an active ingredient and artificial flavors and colors.
For this matter, most Halls Cough Drops seem vegan until we consider factors beyond the manufacturers of the cough drops. Artificial flavors and colors refer to products not made from plants or animals. Unfortunately, product labels do not expound on what artificial flavors and colors contain. Yet artificial flavors might or might not have used some animal element during their manufacturing process.
Examples are two solutions, glycerol or lecithin, which are ingredients in preparing artificial flavors. They might be byproducts from animals or plants.
If petroleum is an ingredient in artificial flavor, it is not vegan because of environmental degradation.
Another factor that makes Halls Cough Drops not vegan is that all medicines get tested on animals at the early stages of research.
What Are Halls Cough Drops?
Halls Cough Drops is a brand name for a range of cough drop flavors. They were first made in the 1930s by the Halls Brothers, founded in 1893 by Thomas Harold Hall and Norman Smith Hall. Halls Cough Drops are a UK product, but you can get them in other countries or online. According to Pharmaceutical Journal 28 April 2017, Halls was one of the biggest selling branded over-the-counter medications sold in Great Britain in 2016.
The manufacturer categorizes Halls Cough Drops as a cough suppressant or oral anesthetic. Though recently in UK Halls Extra Strong has been described as Extra Strong Original flavor hard-boiled sweets. With no mention of an active ingredient of coughs on the package.
Some countries, like Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Colombia, advertise Halls as mentholated hard candy and do not list it as cough medicine.
Most of the Halls Cough Drops flavors have menthol as an active ingredient that works as a local anesthetic by numbing and creating a cooling effect on the throat. Besides soothing the throat, some drops have additional minerals, vitamins, and herbs with medicinal properties to fasten the healing process.
Other Halls cough drops do not contain medicine. They use honey or pectin as ingredients to calm the throat.
How To Use Halls Menthol Cough Drops?
Follow the directions on the product package before using the cough drops. Then dissolve the cough drop in the mouth before swallowing it whole.
Dosage is according to weight. If you weigh 150 pounds, which is approximately 68 kilograms, you have to eat 68 grams of menthol.
Finally, you can take another drop 2 hours after consuming one. There is no standard limit to the number of coughs drops you can take because of the varied amount and types of ingredients in different Halls flavors.
The bottom line is you should handle the cough drops like any other medicine. Follow the instructions on the label and consult your doctor before using the drops if you are on other medications.
How Vegan or Non-vegan Are Halls Cough Drops?
Except for Honey Lemon Flavor Cough Drops, most Halls Cough Drops do not have any content from animal sources.
If you consider artificial colors vegan-friendly, then almost all Halls drops are vegan. But if you are a strict vegan who avoids artificial colors, most Halls drops might not be vegan to you.
To examine the veganism or non-veganism of Halls drops, I will look at a few of the common ingredients in Halls flavors.
- Glycerin helps by applying a smooth coat over the mucus membrane around the throat. But can come from a plant or animal source. Magnesium stearate is; an emulsifier, a binder, or a lubricant derived from animal sources, especially cows or pigs.
- Honey soothes a sore throat. But it fails to meet the vegan ethical standards as bees are either killed or disrupted while fetching honey for human use.
- Zinc is an immune system booster. But, taking too much zinc can cause side effects.
- Ascorbic acid vitamin C prevents low levels of vitamin C in people.
Some Vegan Halls Drops Alternatives
Since there are as many flavors as there are ingredients in different Hall drop flavors, there may be various reasons why a vegan might find a Halls drop vegan friendly or not.
I have given a few alternative flavors to choose from depending on the choice of a vegan.
If you want to avoid menthol in your cough drops, then Halls Defense Line is menthol-free. Fruit Breezers are also non-mentholated cough drops.
For vegans seeking sugar-free cough drops, Halls Menthol Lyptus and sugar-free Citrus Blend Flavor Cough Drops are what is right for you.
Halls’s Brand Cough Drops Tropical Flavor does not contain alcohol or animal ingredients.
Are Halls Cough Drops Safe?
Halls drops can relieve throat ailments caused by bacteria, allergies, or viruses. They are safe for general use.
The active ingredient menthol can result in an overdose if taken in large quantities. But this is very hard because each cough drop contains 3 to 10 milligrams of menthol.
You will have to consume a minimum of 6,800 cough drops to overdose. And swallow them in a pretty short time for it to be toxic. For this matter, Hall Cough Drops are safe as far as an overdose is concerned.
Though the menthol in Halls drops causes a cooling reaction to the human throat, if your dog takes a large amount of the drops, the menthol ingredient in it will cause throat irritations, vomiting, diarrhea, and even death.
Some Halls drops have very high amounts of sugar, as in candy, and may harm people who have diabetes.
Some Halls drops contain vitamin G and zinc as immune system boosters. If you take too many, you may overdose.
Last Thoughts
Halls Cough Drops offer a wide range of flavors. As a vegan, you may not be sure if a cough drop is vegan. I encourage you to look for Halls drops that have clear product descriptions on their wraps. Manufacturers might describe some contents as artificial or natural without explaining the sources because of proprietary issues.
With the growing number of vegan communities, businesses are beginning to recognize vegans as a market segment. Slowly by slowly, manufacturers are seeing the need for making vegan-friendly products. Now that it is not easy to identify vegan Hall Cough Drops, you could use some of these guidelines.
Avoid capsules because they are made from gelatin derived from animal sources unless the product label states otherwise on the package. People should read the cough drop label before taking them to know what they are ingesting.
When unsure about the contents in a cough drop, do due diligence by finding out from the manufacturers. Where no information is forthcoming, you can google the answers. Vegan societies are an excellent source of support too.
