Community | January 16, 2010 | 49 comments

Ice Cream Has Meat in It? 7 "Vegetarian" Foods That Actually Contain Meat Products | | AlterNet

source: http://www.alternet.org/story/145144/ice_cream_has_meat_in_it_7_%22vegetarian%22_foods_that_...

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WeAreChangeKy
When you became a vegetarian, you quickly learned it wasn’t just about skipping pepperoni on that pizza. You had to start scanning labels for ingredients like capric acid, tallow, rennet, glycerin, whey, suet, stereate and emulsifiers – because eating animal fat by any other name would be just as carnivorous. What you may not know is that plenty of common foods widely considered to be veg-friendly (or perhaps we should say veg-adjacent) actually contain animal fat, not just dairy fat. That means flesh. Read on to learn more.

Ice Cream

Ice cream is the one comfort food that temporarily heals all wounds. Unfortunately, you may be noshing on Bessie under all that chocolate sauce. Many brands of ice cream contain capric acid, a fatty acid that’s obtained from animal fats. Check the label!

Chocolate


I hate to break it to you – I really do – but that chocolate sauce you pour over your sundaes may not be any better than the ice cream underneath it. Emulsifiers are present in chocolate, which may or may not be derived from animal fat. The problem is that most labels don’t specify the difference, so you’re better off sticking to ones that do.

Cheese


Animal rennet is used in the production of many different kinds of cheese. What is animal rennet, you ask? It’s a coagulating enzyme that’s extracted from a freshly-slaughtered calf’s stomach. But, that doesn’t mean you have to struggle through a life without cheese. Just buy vegetarian cheese instead, which substitutes microbial or fungal enzymes for animal rennet.

Pastries

Have you ever seen a pork tart behind the glass at your local café? You might want to take a closer look. Many pastries are prepared using lard, which is rendered fat from a pig’s abdomen or kidneys. Similar baked goods may also contain capric acid.

Chewing Gum

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49 comments // Ice Cream Has Meat in It? 7 "Vegetarian" Foods That Actually Contain Meat Products | | AlterNet

  • EthicalVegan
  • covelogibbs
    • 0
      covelogibbs  
    • EthicalVegan:

      The juice in question is labeled as "100% fruit" juice, which raises the question: How can it be 100% juice and still contain color not from fruit?

      I've heard of vegetarians eating seafood, but I've never heard a vegetarian say they eat chicken, eggs yes, but not chicken. It's always been confusing to me that vegetarians will eat cheese, milk and eggs, it seems so.... not vegetable to me. I guess that's why there is the vegan category.

      Just like some vegetarians eat eggs, couldn't some vegans eat honey? Thanks for the honey link, I'm going to check that out now and maybe that will answer my question.

      When I asked one vegan why he didn't eat honey he replied that every time he had eaten honey in the past, he was stung by a bee. People would think twice about eating a steak if every time they did they got the horns!

      We're so distanced from our food. How many of us would continue to eat meat if we had to raise, slaughter and process it ourselves? Those that did would certainly be eating a healthier and I would argue a more humane "harvest."

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  

    • Fat is PART of an animal. AND it's an animal by-product. And if you want to get the fat from an animal, you must kill her.

      Milk is a by-product, as well, and factory farming is horrific when it comes to supplying humans with cows' milk.

      I don't think anyone thought the word "meat" means ONLY "muscle tissue."

    • 2 years ago
  • Billy_Goodreasonnews
    • 0
      Billy_Goodreasonnews  

    • Not sure if fat really counts as meat. I mean, it's an animal byproduct for sure and any vegan or ethical vegetarian might want to know, but I think the word 'meat' specifically refers to the muscle tissue.

    • 2 years ago
  • covelogibbs
    • 0
      covelogibbs  
    • Image

    • I felt kinda bad breaking it to my vegan friend that his 100% juice drink was not vegan. He thought I was joking until I pointed out that it was colored with carmine. For some reason, someone decided that pink grapefruit juice couldn't just be juice from "pink grapefruits," but that it had to actually be pink.

      "Carmine (pronounced /ˈkɑrmɪn/ or /ˈkɑrmaɪn/), also called Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470, or E120, is a pigment of a bright red color obtained from the carminic acid produced by some scale insects, such as the cochineal and the Polish cochineal, and is used as a general term for a particularly deep red color of the same name.

      Carmine may be prepared from cochineal, by boiling bugs in water to extract the carminic acid and then treating the clear solution with alum, cream of tartar, stannous chloride, or potassium hydrogen oxalate; the coloring and animal matters present in the liquid are thus precipitated. Other methods are in use in which egg white, fish glue, or gelatine are sometimes added before the precipitation."

      From Wikipedia

      ?!?!?!?!?!

      I know some not so strict vegans that eat honey, but this seems like it would be different since for carmine bugs have to be boiled in water. I'm assuming and hoping that all the bugs are dead before the boiling begins.

      What do the vegans think about this?

      http://www.argonautliquor.com/images/bn/80/41631.jpg

    • 2 years ago
  • mcjk
    • 0
      mcjk  

    • Uhm... Dairy products like Ice Cream and Cheese already come from animals. What does it matter to a loose vegetarian- a real vegan wouldn't be eating those anyway.

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • MizPiz
  • Paven
  • taurus424
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • taurus424:

      Veggie cheese may not be vegan. Even Amy's sliced veggie cheese has whey in it, as I recall.

      But anyway, you bring up a really interesting point about the taste of "fake" cheese as opposed to "real" cheese: When I was first switching over to going totally vegan, I tried a slice of vegan cheese by itself. Ew, I was so turned off. Then it took my son to remind me that vegan cheese isn't actually CHEESE, so how could it taste exactly LIKE cheese? Duh. So I then made myself a vegan burger, added a slice of cheese, along with tomato slices, red onion, sprouts -- the whole thing -- and had a "cheese"burger. Aha! What a difference THAT made.

      So I have to say that you're very, VERY lucky to have slipped into the cheese substitutes and not minded that difference. To this day, darn it, I can't have a slice of vegan cheese on its own. But I sure like making blends, especially for Mexican and Italian dishes.

      And now that there's Daiya, WOW! That stuff comes amazingly closer to the taste, plus the texture is better than I'd even hoped for.

      Thanks for your comments, which led me to "reveal" a bit more about how sometimes it isn't yet "perfect" with vegan substitutes.

    • 2 years ago
  • AndrewH13
    • 0
      AndrewH13  

    • I admire vegetarians solely for their convictions. So I'm not telling anyone about this, the last thing they need is for their diets to be any harsher. Ignorance is a full tummy. haha.

    • 2 years ago
  • ryan8566
    • 0
      ryan8566  
    • AndrewH13:

      sure, there diet is 'harsh'...but their choice, no? it's not mandatory. i will stick to a nice prime rib (med. to rare, please), maybe with a steak tip salad to start...and 'death by chocolate', served in good places, as a finish.

    • 2 years ago
  • AndrewH13
  • EthicalVegan
  • Nephwrack
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • Image
    • Nephwrack:

      Quite the contrary. I can live with my conscience.

      I rescue animals - big, small -- and I love what I do. I mean, I LOVE what I do.

      Being a vegan is easy for me.

      Now, back in the years when I was on the road -- and then only a vegetarian -- it was a struggle getting the hotel restaurants to accommodate my diet, but that was a few decades back, and times have changed. So I find it remarkably easy. And, of course, I'm eating LOTS healthier (there's the selfish part).

      This may be a bit of help to those at least interested:

      http://bobbyrock.wordpress.com/category/veganismanimal-issues/

      You kind of have to dig in a bit to find the actual "facts," etc., regarding veganism, but Bobby's a very dear friend of mine, a rock musician, a body builder, and a very crazy-happy guy. He, our other dear friend, and I are establishing a humane education program in Southern California... by the way.

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • Nephwrack:

      P.S. Other than feeling "miserable" about the plight of our abused animals, my life -- thus far (knock on wood?) -- has been anything BUT miserable. I'm not speaking about any other human being, either, okay? Just that I am not miserable.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nephwrack
  • EthicalVegan
  • Ari_Liston
  • EthicalVegan
  • nursediesel
    • 0
      nursediesel  

    • The first Holiday after my two sisters became vegans I thought I'd be a dear and make something they could eat without animal products. They were frowning when I pulled out my beautiful veggie-jello salad. How could I know the jello was an animal product?

    • 2 years ago
  • DeliaTheArtist
    • 0
      DeliaTheArtist  

    • Yes, thanks for the post! I wouldn't say I've become a vegetarian but I've cut my meat consumption down considerably and I'm still navigating through the waters of a mainly vegetarian lifestyle. It's damn hard! You have to be so aware of what is in your food- but that's also the upside and the reason why I chose to do it. As treewolf said, the public in general should be more aware of what they are eating and I agree that companies should be forced to fully disclose wtf is in the products they are making. We must rally for mandates because companies will never do this on their own!

    • 2 years ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • amandamanda
    • 0
      amandamanda  

    • This is one of the big reasons why I went vegan shortly after becoming vegetarian. It was so hard to find cheese without rennet (this was impossible when eating out in the suburbs) that I figured I might as well just be vegan and make life easier for everyone.

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • I_Heart_MAMBOSAUCE
    • 0
      I_Heart_MAMBOSAUCE  

    • styrofoam is also made from porcine byproducts, and most gel capsules for pills like tylenol are bovine or porcine gelitan as well. Animal byproducts are in more stuff than you think...

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • I_Heart_MAMBOSAUCE:

      As a true vegan, I've had a tough time with one prescription I have, because the generic version comes only in gelatin capsules. Since I haven't any medical insurance, I can't buy the brand new (several hundred dollars a month).

      So I've had to make a compromise... I don't swallow the capsules. Instead, I open each capsule, then swallow only the drug inside. But there's this ethical issue for me, because I obviously am BUYING a non-vegan drug BECAUSE of the capsule. Even though I don't consume it... ????

    • 2 years ago
  • raylinmarie
  • Minus5scenePoints
  • EthicalVegan
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • lolitanimatronic:

      TO: Minus5Scene -- You wrote: "Funny you say that, I've actually herd some people say their a vegetarian, but they eat fish or chicken! mind you, most of those people are well, stupid or older."

      I laughed at your misspelling of the word "herd." Cute, when you think about it.

      But, ANYWAY, at what age do you feel people are considered old? Seriously want to know.

      I have a friend who is 87 years old, and she has been a VEGAN her entire life, as were her parents before her. I have MANY friends who are also vegan, and they are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. And none of them is STUPID, either.

      I became a vegetarian when I was 12. And I do mean a conscientious vegetarian. And about 15 years ago, I went completely vegan. My closest friends are all vegans -- tends to go with the philosophy of life/living -- and they vary in ages from about 15 to 93.

      At the SAME time, however, I know of MILLIONS of people who are not vegan and who are, therefore -- in your definition -- STUPID. I think maybe uneducated, uncaring, unwilling to learn may be more accurate terms to use for the non-vegan population of the world.

      Try not to generalize so much. Instead, though, nicely encourage those around you to consider the horrors inflicted upon animals of all sorts.

      When you DO go vegan, please visit: http://current.com/groups/veganism/. And, of course, if you WANT to go vegan, also please visit "Veganism."

      http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/wp-content/uploads/pig-6a00e54fa1b0...

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • lolitanimatronic:

      Hi! Oh, totally misunderstood - sorry indeed. I knew YOU knew butter wasn't vegan, but there are bunches of folks reading this thread who know next to nothing about either veganism or even vegetarianism. That was NOT meant as a criticism, not at all. Sorry that came off obviously wrong.

      Picking fights against whom? I certainly said nothing unintentionally negative to you, for sure. If you're alluding to something/someone else, PLEASE let me know. I mean that.

      I don't like confrontations, and this needs to be fixed, if there actually IS one brewing, okay? Thanks!

    • 2 years ago
  • treewolf39
    • 0
      treewolf39  

    • Another place where full disclosure is needed. And why not fully list all ingredients and the point of origin? There is an incredible amount of trust in the crap that gets shoved into our mouths everyday.

    • 2 years ago
  • Mariased
    • 0
      Mariased  
    • treewolf39:

      The problem with that is that if the companies disclosed information on where their ingredients actually came from their products wouldn't be very appetizing. The best bet is to stay away from processed foods as much as possible.

    • 2 years ago
  • treewolf39
    • 0
      treewolf39  
    • treewolf39:

      The problem is that they get to flood the market with questionable products of little or no nutritional value. These products are then pushed off on the poor and uneducated across the world. We would be better off if these products were never made.

    • 2 years ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • Mariased
    • 0
      Mariased  
    • treewolf39:

      I completely agree with you, just answering the question posed in your first comment. As long as our food is controlled by massive corporations, we can't really expect anything else but the semi-edible food-like substances with (I like how you put it) "questionable" origins.

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
  • bgrkls
  • EliteKane
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • bgrkls:

      What?!? No, it's NOT okay, not if you're 100% vegan. And even if you're "only" a vegetarian, the main reason (HOPEFULLY) that vegetarians have at least begun the change is because animals are KILLED... and not HOW they're killed.

    • 2 years ago
  • Incredulous
  • phukitol
  • raylinmarie
  • Brick_Swine
  • EthicalVegan
    • 0
      EthicalVegan  
    • Brick_Swine:

      I'm sure if they're TRUE vegans, then they very much already know about all this crap in ice cream. Visit "Veganism," and see the beginning of a list of some great "ice cream" alternatives.

      [I'm hoping fellow vegans will contribute more vegan ice cream products there.]

    • 2 years ago
  • EthicalVegan
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