you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 63 points 1 year ago (17 children)

All kinds of weird shit you’d think would be vegan aren’t… like some brands of white sugar (bone char) and some beers (isinglass [fish swim bladders]). And there’s always our good friend with a million names, cochineal/carmine/crimson lake/natural red 4/E120, aka bugs that make your food red.

  • source
  • hideshow 17 child comments
  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    They sneak gelatin into so many things too. One that got me for a year or two after I went vegetarian was Altoids. I liked to keep em in my car to have something to munch/occupy myself while driving, and never even thought to check the ingredients. How could mints have animal in em? Turns out they have gelatin! I honestly never miss meat or anything, but I do miss gelatin to a degree. Not because I want gelatin in particular, but it’s in so many tasty things, and vegetarian gummies and the like are always so expensive ;_;

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Also milk powder and whey - there's so many god damn chips where you go "why the fuck does that need milk powder?"

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    The real answer to that question is the dairy industry. Same reason there’s high fructose corn syrup in so many random things - corn industry.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    i was about to recommend katyes, because they are great and cost like 1€ a bag in local stores, but apparently, thats 5€ on amazon (fuck amazon), so unless u can get them locally, thats not exactly a good option :<

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, I’ve had (many of..) them while overseas and they’re probably some of my favorite veggie gummies, but sadly quite expensive back here in the states. They’re a precious part of my luggage returning ahaha, maybe not entirely a bad thing I can’t get them quite that cheap here… that and freia chocolate

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Not to say your wrong, but I personally don't understand this strict adherence to pretty arbitrary rules. I agree with the idea of vegan/vegetarian, as a way to protest animal mistreatment and the increased resources animals consume. However, that amount of gelatin is not playing a factor in that. It's also not hurting you at all. I'm curious what makes you be so strict?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I can't speak for them, but:

    1. I found gelatin kind of disgusting even before going vegetarian, and many vegetarians, including past me, grow more disgusted after they become vegetarian. You typically also inform yourself more and learn of various foods with gelatin, where you might've found the thought disgusting even beforehand.

    2. I can empathize with your point that these mints contain so little gelatin that it hardly matters, since they really do contain very little gelatin. But vegetarianism often follows shortly after you decide that "my impact doesn't matter" isn't a valid argument for not doing your best anyways, as that's also typically the excuse for still eating meat for as long as you did, when you had already decided that it's immoral.

    3. It's often easier to not eat something at all than to make exceptions, because you have to inform yourself on the impact for the latter. This may be an impossible task, because you will find hardly any information for the concrete supply chain of the product you're looking at.
      For example, I would be morally a-ok with eating gelatin, if it came from the bones of cows that died of natural causes. Cows dying of natural causes is practically not a thing, but leaving that aside, I'd need to know the gelatin suppliers and their bone suppliers and would need independent audits of them to have even a chance of knowing the impact. Compare that to just looking for a green V on the packaging or quickly scanning the ingredient list. I may be a moral Goody Two-Shoes, but I'm also lazy.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I realized I forgot to reply here, but you covered it all pretty thoroughly! I don’t find it appetizing anymore, though I do miss the texture of gummies and still hope to find something closer to it than pectin, but trying to jump through all the mental hoops to justify it etc just ain’t worth it. I draw a pretty simple line at whether an animal dies for something or not, and that works well for me. It isn’t particularly difficult to find alternatives to stuff like altoids either, though I will say I like their classier metal tin ahaha. But I just gave them away and bought something else, easy peasy

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'll just stick to limiting my meat intake.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    For more than a decade I was discouraged to ever begin thinking about going vegan, because all the vocal internet vegans convinced me that unless everything I eat, wear, own, come in contact with or thing about, never ever touched something that touched something that touched an animal, I am basically a Hitler, and just as bad as those all meat weirdos. You either holier than everyone, or you're the worst monster possible. Vegetarians are worse than meateaters because they want the vegan superpower but don't do the whole penance. And they all equally monsters, and if I just stop eating meat I might as well eat people alive.
    Bullshit like that hypnotised me for way longer than I am happy to admit.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Damn, I didn't know about the sugar and beer. Guess i gotta look up what I'm drinking

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (-1 replies)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Beer is safe here in Germany! :D We've got a thing called "Deutsches Reinheitsgebot"/"The German Law of Purity", that prohibits the use of anything but water, barley, hops and yeast in making beer. So the beer itself is always vegan, you just have to watch out for little dumb stuff like the brand Bitburger using Milk-based glue for the labels on their glass beer bottles.

  • source
  • parent