Monday, July 29, 2019

Decoding Ingredients

Trying my best to list down common ingredients and what they are made up of to help vegetarian people and/or vegans.

  • Rennet in cheese: Rennet traditionally extracted from animal tissues but microbial or organic rennet (plant based) are vegetarian, as I read online. If ingredients on Cheese packet just says enzymes then most likely rennet is from animal. 
  • Lecithin: Comes from animal, plants or soy. If ingredients say Soy Lecithin then vegetarians can consume.
  • Porcine enzymes: Comes from pork. Not for vegetarians.
  • Gelatin: Ice creams, yogurts generally contain gelatin which comes from animal. Not for vegetarians.
  • Whey: It's a byproduct of manufacture of cheese so most probably will have remains of rennet. Not for vegetarians.
  • Xanthan Gum: Most of websites say it's produced by fermentation of glucose and sucrose caused by a bacteria named Xanthomonas campestris. Sometimes it's derived using Whey. So in those cases, its Not for vegetarians.
  • Anchovy (Anchovies): It's a fish.
  • Cellulose Gum: It comes from plants. So it's vegan.
  • Guar Gum: It comes from Guan beans. So it's vegan. 

Food colors: Artificial food colors for sure tested on animals. And natural food colors may be coming directly from animals or insects.
You may want to read this particular section - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal#Uses

I will continue to update it with new findings and change the format to increase readability.