Your Fruit Juices Aren’t Vegan May 17, 2010

If you are worried about ensuring you are eating only vegan ingredients, you might have to start looking closer at your juice. I originally thought of making this two separate blog posts, but after typing them out, I decided just to combine them. Both have to do with Gelatin that is hidden inside of our fruit drinks and beverages, thus making them not vegan friendly!

Part 1 Beta-Carotene and Gelatin
Beta-carotene, a precursor to Vitamin A, is often added to beverages for its yellow-orange colour. Unfortunately, if you drink anything with beta-carotene added to it, you are eating Gelatin.

Beta-Carotene is not water soluble. Gelatin is added to it to make it water soluble, dispersing its yellow-orange colour to the drink and not clumping.

While vegetarian friendly beta-carotene vitamins are widely available, you should think twice before consuming any commercial product with beta-carotene added to it.

Part Two The General use of Gelatin in Fruit Juices.
If you’ve read through my blog posts, you may have read about the clarification of alcohol using fish bladders. Well, alcohol isn’t the only thing that requires refining and clarification. Unfortunately, gelatin is used for the clarification of some fruit juices and sport drinks.

A short websearch will yield a few articles and chat room forums that discuss this. One problem though, is that manufacturing of the same product can be different country to country. Currently, I”m emailing companies to find region specific answers to which products use gelatin in their creation.

-The Vegan Detective
www.vegandetective.com

Are Your Condoms Vegan? May 4, 2010

As the years of my being vegan begin tallying up, I’m amazed as everyday products I still use without asking myself if they are vegan friendly. Often times, it takes someone I know to ask me if I use ‘such and such product’ and if it’s vegan friendly.

Well, a while back I asked myself if the condoms I was using were vegan. Vegan condoms you are asking? What wouldn’t’ be vegan friendly about condoms.

Well, as it turns out, most condom manufacturers use casein as part of the manufacturing process. This isn’t entirely necessary, so there are some vegan condoms available.

Glyde Condoms seem to be the most popular of vegan condoms, and I believe are available in Europe and North America. They are registered with the Vegan Society so you can be fairly certain they’re vegan! You may have to visit a specialty store (e.g Condom shack in Toronto), or online vegan merchandise store to obtain them–but they are available!

So, you next evolution of being completely 100% vegan is to only use vegan condoms!

Mammalian Lacteal Secretion Producers Protest Against Soy Milk April 30, 2010

The National Milk Producers have launched another complaint to the FDA regarding the word milk being used by plant-based beverages. e.g soy, almond, rice milk. They claim that the word milk should only be used for products that are made up of mammalian lacteal secretions. They’ve even created a facebook page.

I”m tempted to create a we dont’ need milk page in response, but lets face it, facebook it littered with vegan groups already, so we dont’ need another one. So, here is a milk sucks page.

Maybe its the vegan in me, but mammalian lacteal secretions sounds disgusting and is just creating bad press for themselves. They’ve creating news, albeit, likely not huge news, about the increasing popularity of milk alternatives, and are reminding people that milk is a secretion produced by the mammary glands of mammals for their infants. Way to go dairy industry, here’s a big slow clap for you

Sheeps Given Meth and Than Tasered April 27, 2010

This is a sad example of pointless research conducted on animals. Basically, 16 sheep were given anaesithtihed, given meth, and than tasered. The study was born out teh problem that people who are methamphetamine intoxicated have been dying when tasered by cops.

You can read the study here.

Want to get in touch with the lead author of this study? Well, you can:  Jeffrey Ho, MD; e-mail: jeff.ho@hcmed.org.

The study was funded by TASER international and presented at the  Society for Academic Emergency Medicine annual meeting.

Fire Stations to Get Oxygen Masks for Pets April 26, 2010

The New Brunswick SPCA has initiated a campaign with the New Brunswick FirE Marshal’s office to help equip 171 stations with oxygen masks for pets. The full Story can be read here.

I applaud this initiate that will allow fire fighters to help save the lives of non-human animals.  I hope someday the public will place this much importance on non-domesticated animals as well.

Do you want pink slime with that April 25, 2010

In case you haven’t read it, according the NY Times most ground beef sold in the US contains “nasty pink slime” (as labeled by an FDA microbiologist). This pink slime was once only considered suitable for pet food and cooking oils.

Thanks to some genius scientists, the pink slime is now treated with amonia to “retard spoilage”. The result? Pink slime is included in lunch programs for poor children and in the burgers of fast food restaurants such as Burger King and McDonalds.

From a seemingly related article, Reuters has reported 390 tons (yes, you read that correctly) of ground beef, some produced 2 years ago, has been recalled due to it being tainted by E. coli bacteria.

Bon Apetit

-Vegan Detective

Animal Testing in Beauty Products April 21, 2010

I think one misconception that needs to be cleared up right away is that just because a product wasn’t tested on animals doesn’t make it vegan or vegetarian friendly. There are many animal sourced ingredients found in your makeup, shampoos, and anti wrinkle creams

Lets look at natural Moisturizing factor…Seems innocent enough right? Well, Natural Moisturizing factor is another name for Hyaluronic Acid. This is basically a product found in cosmetics to help reduce wrinkles. Typically, its sourced from animals.

A vegetarian friendly version of this product goes under the trademarked name Juvederm.

Hyaluronic Acid isn’t the only product in your cosmetics to be concerned about…
Your makeup could include any of the following:

Lard
Lanolin
Beeswax
tallow
Milk Products
Propolis
Elastin
Hyaluronic Acid

Curious about what these products are? Visit our website and look up the ingredients on your face cream or lipstick.

What are some other issues to be concerned about? How bout seemilly good companies owned by bad companies.
Did you know that Nestle is a 50% owner of L’Oreal? L’Ooreal brands include: Biotherm, The Body shop, Vichy Laboratories, Garnier, Cacheral,and Maybelline amongst others.

Both L’Oreal and Nestle have long histories of animal abuse and exploitation. L’oreal has an interesting stance on animal testing. L’Oreal has stated they no longer employ the use of animal testing on finished products. Did you catch that? FINISHED products.
Notice the omission of ingredients in products from that statement. Again, just be leary of companies saying product not tested on animals. Always be sure that the ingredients aren’t tested on animals. You look up extenisve information on ingredients in cosmetics, cleaners, and food items on our website.

-The Vegan Detective
www.vegandetective.com

Your Non-Dairy Creamer Has Creamer In It April 20, 2010

Okay, for the experienced vegan, this probably is filed under the ‘no shit sherlock’ category. However, for many, I”m sure there’s a thing or two you can learn–or relate to, so read on!

I was at a friend of mine’s house having coffee, and thinking he was being vegan friendly offered my a non-dairy creamer. Before I even continue, coffee shoudn’t have creamer, or milk, or sugar added to it. Everyone knows its best serve black! ugh, but I digress…

Anyways, as an informed vegan, I knew that Coffemate (and similar non-dairy creamers) actually isn’t vegan friendly. Here’s why.

Basically, it has to do with our redonculous food labeling laws. The definition of non-dairy seems to boil down to the absence of lactose…Yes,  from what I’ve been able to figure out, even though the ingredients used may originally come from a cow, they are non -dairy because they don’t contain lactose. I think they’ve finally started just referring to them as coffee whiteners, but this is  lesson learned–always read the ingredients, even if it says non-dairy creamer!

Let’s have a look at a key ingredient. Sodium Caseinate. Casein is the most prevalent form of protein in cows milk. Basically,for creamers,  the acidic casein is coagulated and than neutralized and dried. The end product is a white, chalky, can of garbage that is derived from milk and labelled non dairy.

This doublethink labeling is fairly easy to spot. Pick up some ‘non-dairy ‘ coffee creamer, and beside sodium caseinate, it should read beside it (a milk derivative). Yes, a Milk derivative in a non-dairy creamer. At least we’ve come far enough that they have to tell us its a milk derivative. I went to their website and copy and pasted the ingredients. I’m going to preface this by saying, even  if you’re not vegan, this stuff has a lot of garbage in it! I’m workign on having all the ingredients on the vegan detective website

Without further adeua, coffee mate orginal:

GLUCOSE SYRUP, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (MAY CONTAIN COCONUT, PALM KERNEL AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL), SODIUM CASEINATE (A MILK DERIVATIVE),  DIPOSTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM ALUMINUM SILICATE, MONOGLYCERIDES, ACETYLATED TARTARIC ACID ESTERS OF MONO- AND DYGLYCERIDES, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOUR, COLOUR

- The Vegan Detective
www.vegandetective.com

Aveda Hair Care Product Contest April 18, 2010

The doors on PETA’s Aveda hair care product contest are closing soon.  You have until Aprill 22/2010 to enter.

To find teh contest click here.

Meat-Free Mondays in San Fran April 17, 2010

San Francisco seems to be the first city to jump aboard Paul McCartney’s proposed Meat-Free Mondays.

A full story can be found here.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=7370993

I can’t imagine the city I live in–or most North American Cities embracing this idea. Although I’m a vegan for animal rights reasons–I like the fact that this campaign is further bringing up the enviornmental impact of eating meat.  Although it still seems quite taboo for any media outlet to positive articles regarding animal rights, they’ve definitely embraced vegetarianism as an eco-concious decision. I’m expeciting soccer moms all over to be heading out to whole-foods markets on Mondays in their hybrid SUVs and buy mock ground beef to make veggie tacos.