Pork in my cereal bar – why didn’t you tell me?

I’m afraid this issue is very widespread and has been for decades if not centuries, but as we are getting “fussier” about our food – i.e. making sure that we cater for Halal or Kosher diets, dealing with vegetarians who are vegetarian on principle and won’t eat animal products, rather than just who don’t like and don’t eat meat in it’s unadulterated form, etc., we are discovering more and more of them.

Don’t get me wrong – we should cater for all diets and all dietary requirements and I my self am a vegetarian (though only the non-meat eating sort as I hate it, not the avoid all animal products at any cost sort), but it’s because we are being careful to cater for all these needs that we are finding all these issues.

However, moving strictly back to the question posed, the answer is reasonably simple: all products which really are vegetarian have the Vegetarian Society symbol on them. If that symbol isn’t shown then you should check very carefully to see what is in the product before you buy it.

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 30 years. I never expect anything to be veggie and always check. Most veggies know what sorts of things are typically booby trapped with gelatine, rennet, animal fat etc. and avoid them. It’s not really a surprise but it can be annoying at events where people and even caterers have put little thought into the food they are providing. My BIL recently got married and despite 8 of us being veggie, he failed miserably at providing anything we could eat at all at the reception and the only reason we ate at the wedding breakfast was because I phoned the caterers and organised our food with the head chef myself. *sigh*

Although, the hotel thought Parmesan was veggie and had it in every single one of their “vegetarian” menu options!!

Sainsburys gooseberry fool yoghurts contain pork gelatine – OK it is listed in the ingredients list but honestly it never occurred to me to look when I bought it. Pork in a yoghurt? Yuk!

Being a vegetarian for years, I was shocked to see that (a few years ago) Lea & Perrins stated their Worcestershire Sauce was vegetatian, despite having fish juice in it!!! Needless to say I wrote to them, along with many other vegeratians I told, furious. After a bitter, protracted argument, we were successful and they removed this statement. I would like to think it was down to us complaining, however I have a feeling it could also have been down to the Food Standards Agency and Advertising Standards Authority.

Sweets is a big issue, shops who sell steamed puddings often put beef suet in them,. This is also an issue with restaurants, when selling sweets, as nowhere on the menu does it state they are not vegetarian. Jelly is another one, with vegegel, or other around, why use gelatine??

I check everything (if possible) and if I am still unsure, I will not buy it.

Sorry, as you can tell, I am quite passionate about this, so I will get off my soapbox.

Upon discovery many of my vegetarian drinkers where shocked to discover that the following beers: ‘Fosters’, ‘Estrella’, ‘Sol’, ‘Red Stripe’ and ‘Carling Black Label’, and the ciders ‘Strongbow’ and ‘Bulmers Original’ all use animal products.

Unfortunately this is something that can’t be easily found or stated at a bar.

The slightly baffling thing here is Kellogg’s – a company started by a vegetarian using unnecessarily non-vegetarian (also non Kosher or Halal) pork gelatine.

I dislike all red meat except minimal-fat Gammon and that has to be very well cooked (most would say burned) before I’ll eat it. That’s purely a choice of taste issue, nothing to do with dietary requirements or religion or p;political beliefs.

I do however eat fish – indeed I could not possibly cope without it – and eggs, including duck eggs.

I was astounded, though, at work when I recently say that fishcakes were on offer – very rare in our place – so looked up the price on the menu board only to find that the were the “VEGETARIAN dish of the day”. I approached the catering manager who could not understand why fish-cakes were not vegetarian.

I should not have been surprised at her level of ignorance as last year a Muslim member fo staff complained that the Halal sticker had been placed on all Ham sandwiches. The catering manager’s response was to say that she would make sure she bought Halal Ham in future!!!!!

With levels of ignorance such as these and those reported by other contributors above around it is hardly surprising that some vegetarians don’t think to check ingredients lists on products that at first glance don’t appear to be meat products.

All that said, in many cases there is no need for the meat product to be within items such as cereal bars – it’s purely to make it cheaper to make and increase the profit margin.

Some items, however, have always been made with meat content since they were invented – for example suet pudding. I know we have vegetable suet these days and I use that a lot, but suet is, by definition, grated beef fat and traditional recipe suet pudding will de facto have beef suet in it.

Regular readers who have seen my posts on other convo’s will be aware that my favourite saying is “Caveat Emptor” [buyer beware] – and this is simple another example of where buyers need to be savvy to avoid making a mistake. (Whether the buyer SHOULD HAVE to beware is quite another debate!)

I suggest looking at this from another perspective. The condemned product has a list of ingredients and anyone who wants to avoid any of these ingredients simply has to look at the list.

I am more concerned about products such as wines and ‘home-made’ foods where there is no list of ingredients. That gives plenty of opportunity to add all sorts of unexpected ingredients.

…and sugar is often whitened with bone char from cattle. Eek.

I m not a veggie,but my partner is, I like to watch my weight,health etc,and it really really annoyse when you go and buy a pudding,mousse,cereal bar etc and its got bloody gelatine in,Why??Cant they use something else??I do eat meat occasipnakky and certainly do not want animal bones in my chocolate afters!!