DU Vegans, Vegetarians, Kosher and Halal Keepers...

[Taverner]

Not on the label



Ethical Man has discovered a whole range of food additives don’t even get listed on the ingredients.

I’m spending a month as vegan to see how cutting animal products out of my diet will affect my environmental footprint. It is surpisingly difficult to avoid animals; you'd be amazed how many foods contain animal products in some form or other.

There was a huge response when I wrote about my concerns that an amino acid used as an additive in bread is sometimes manufactured from human hair. I was reassured to discover that it is possible to avoid the substance – called L-Cysteine or E920 – because it is listed on the ingredients.

<snip>

Andrew describes the use of these enzymes as secret because they do not appear on the label. Industrial bakers use a loophole to classify them as “processing aids”. The problem for a vegan like me – or for that matter for Jews, Muslims and vegetarians – is that some of these enzymes are manufactured from animals, including pigs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/01/not_on_the_label.html

[underpants]

1. Halal Keepers? FREE HALAL!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal

You learn something new everyday

[Taverner]

2. Yeah I wasn't sure how to use that one

Does one keep halal like one keeps kosher, or do they practice halal like one practices Islam?

[ThomCat]

3. This really pisses me off!

Any company that hides ingredients this way has no respect for their customers.

[jilln]

4. Some companies are better than others about labeling

If the bread just says "enzymes" or "dough conditioners" or something like that, I don't buy it. Some bread says "wheat enzymes". Whole Foods is horrible about mislabeling things and their employees don't know anything. I once asked if the enzymes in their bakery bread were amylase (which can come from pigs) and they insisted amylase is from fruit and showed me a vitamin that said the amylase came from fruit.

In general, a good bread with few ingredients listed will be fine, the overly processed crap that passes as food will not be fine.

[LeftyMom]

5. Labeleing requirements in the UK aren't as strict as here

Here if the bread has L-Cystine in it, it says so and you can't hide it in an E code as they do there. The french bread at Safeway for example, provided you have any clue what L-Cystine is or that it's not veg (new vegans need ingredient lists for stuff like this, but eventually you memorize it all, even if you're a twit like me.)

However, because there are more veg and vegan people in the UK and because the vegan/AR community there is pretty darn well organized, most of the big groceries label what items are vegetarian or vegan. There was a rumor going around last week that Sainsbury's (a big grocery chain) would stop labeling store branded vegan items as such and there was a bit of an uproar and it won't be happening. I'd be thrilled to see any big chain in the US start labeling the vegan items (and I think a lot of omnis would be shocked at what does and doesn't make the cut.) So it's a tradeoff.