What's it got in it?

Posted on 2003/01/21 14:26:19 (January 2003) by john.

I'd like to know what I'm eating, thanks very much.

I'm no longer sure eating whatever is put in front of you is such a virtue any more. One of my new year's resolutions for this year was to get really tough on the kind of by-products slipped into food which looks, for the large part, vegetarian, but actually makes it, in my opinion, almost as bad as eating meat. Stuff like gelatine, glycerin, rennet, lard and so on. So, the last few times I've been buying something I have some sense of doubt about, I've thought to hell with the embarassment, I'm just going to ask exactly what it has in it. After all, why should I be embarassed? Don't I have a right to decide what I do or don't put inside my stomach?

It is amazingly difficult to get a decent answer. Even in franchised mass produced burger joints, there doesn't seem to be any scope for customers to find out what the ingredients of a given product are. Isn't this strange in a way? The food you buy in supermarkets has to contain the full ingredients on it by law. Why is it then that fast food places don't seem to have to bother? OK, I can understand to an extent, for a proper restaurant it would be exceedingly complicated to list all the ingredients that go to make up a particular dish, as often this may vary from day to day. So I don't know what the answer is there. However, I'd like to see some trading standards regulations imposed on the use of the little green V symbol, for a start. There needs to be an agreed definition of what "vegetarian" actually means, not just the restauranteurs whim. As for burger joints and the like, the food is blatantly conveyor belt produced, and it wouldn't be difficult to just produce a list of ingredients to hand out to any enquiring customers now would it? I mean, not just for vegetarians - what about allergy sufferers and the like? Or people that do not eat certain foods on religous grounds?

I'm not asking people in the food industry to do this purely for my benefit. I'm asking because vegetarians make up a significant sector of the market now, and it makes good business sense to treat them with some respect.

I've also been thinking about this recently. It amazes me that most cheese is not suitable for example. I am almost certain that when you go for a pizza and order a "vegetarian" option, you are in fact ordering a pizza covered in melted calves rennet...

I recon that the vegetarian society symbol definition has a good grasp of what a constitutes vegatarian food:

Products have to be free of animal flesh, meat or bone stock, animal carcass fats, gelatine, aspic or any other products resulting from slaughter

Products and ingredients should not have been tested on animals ( cut off date 1986)

Eggs used must be free range

Products must be GMO free

Products must also be free from cross contamination with non vegetarian products/ingredients in the production process.

The last one is down to the restaurant I guess. I've been to BBQ's where my food has had to share the grill with meat. I now bring my own BBQ along. Is that fair?

Posted by rowanboy at 2003/01/21 16:34:14.

Apocalypse would soon sort this all out.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2003/01/21 16:49:58.

Spare a thought for us 'full blooded' carniv(wh)ores. We think a burger contains meat when in fact it has everything but, it even includes rejected vegetables!

Posted by Karl at 2003/01/24 12:45:34.

Nice Karl. Although I would class myself as a Apathevore. I don't really care about what I eat.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2003/01/24 10:29:03.

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