Label Reader's Guide
A quick guide for ensuring that a meal is completely plant based and healthy
The best way to ensure that your food is plant based is to only eat things that come in their own package like an avocado, almond or pomegranate. And to make sure it's healthy buy organic, or better yet get to know your local organic farmer.
However this is not entirely realistic for most of us at present. Luckily food is required to be labeled. If you see Vegan labels and logos this ensures that it is completely plant based.
We need to read the ingredient list for those products without vegan labels. Obvious red light items are anything with the word milk, butter, egg, stock or lard on the label.
Watch for animal derived ingredients such as whey, lactose, casein, Worcestershire sauce, caramel and mayonnaise. To the novice these might easily be mistaken for vegan ingredients when in fact they are not. Most soy cheese products contain whey or casein in them. Honey is not considered to be vegan. Caramel may be made from sugar, butter, cream or milk, and flavoring.
Natural flavors can be basically anything that wasn't synthetically produced, so you may have to call the company to make certain natural flavors are not animal derived
Check the label for nutritional information. If cholesterol is not 0, it contains animal fat. Cholesterol is not found in plant based products, not even coconuts. Although TFAs (trans fatty acids) found in hydrogenated oils will cause blood cholesterol to build up.
Marshmallows are actually not vegetarian. They are made from cartilage The same goes for gelatin and Jello brand desserts.
What about chocolate? Cocoa butter is made from the cocoa bean, so it is vegan. However most chocolate has animal products added to it. Look for ingredients such as whey, milk, or milk fat on the package. These are all animal derived.
Like Chinese or East Asian food? Hoi sin or duck sauce does not have animal products in it so you're safe there, but fish sauce and oyster sauce do contain fish and other creatures of the sea.
What about beer? You might be surprised to find that some beers are filtered through products derived from animals such as isinglass and gelatin. See VeganVanguard for more information...
Quick List of common ingredients that contain or may contain animal products:
Milk, Butter, Eggs, Chicken or beef stock or broth, Lard, Beef fat, Whey, Lactose, Casein, Worcestershire sauce, Mayonnaise, Calcium lactate, Caramel, Gelatin, Marshmallows, Fish sauce, Oyster Sauce, Cholesterol, Glycerin, Honey
PETA has a list of animal products to avoid in your diet and in products such as shampoo. This is a pretty comprehensive list, but it is missing a few items that may or may not be animal based. For example calcium lactate may be animal derived. Glycerin or cellulose may or may not be vegetarian as well.
If you are concerned about GMOs, you should know that products with GMO ingredients are not required to be labeled as so. Corn, soy and canola (rapeseed) are the most likely of foods to be GMO. The only way to make sure they are not is to buy certified organic. If you have ever had a soda which contains corn syrup, you have most likely consumed GMO corn. Many processed foods contain soy lecithin, corn syrup or canola oil in them. For more information on GMOs and organic certification see the article titled monkeys choose organic.
References
* Vegan labels and logos
* VeganVanguard
* PETA
* list of animal products
Fri May 12 09:06:00 -0600 2006
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