Vegan food testing
Ok. Wow. Quarry Girl went out with a special secret squirrel partner and tested a load of vegan food from veg restaurants to see if said food was actually vegan.
This is something I’m sure any vegan has considered – to what level do you trust a food outlet? In most cases, if something is listed as vegan I believe it and don’t question further. If something isn’t listed as vegan – like at a Chinese mock-meat restaurant for example, where the food is potentially vegan even if not listed as such – then I ask. But ultimately you are relying on the word of the restauranteur.
So imagine if products listed as ‘vegan’ were found to contain high levels of egg or casein. Crazy.
(Thanks D for the link.)
Mandee
10:30am, 1 Jul 09
Wow indeed! I read about this on Vegan.com and then went and read the post on QG. Amazing, it makes me want to do it with all the mock meat dishes we have avail here!
lisa
11:40am, 1 Jul 09
Aye, it’s kinda scary huh? But, short of never touching food that you haven’t prepared yourself, how do you deal with the fact that some food you eat may be tainted?
lena.m
10:10pm, 9 Jul 09
aaah, this is so brutal. like, totally amazing food science investigatory work to the power of a million. this sort of thing is potentially heartbreaking for people who trust vegan restaurants and the mock products.
at least once a week i feel like a big vegan ruiner for telling my housemate (who calls himself a hardcore vegan but eats things from subway and dominos!?!?) that xyz sanitarium product has egg and milk in it and that uvw soy cheese contains casein…. its so amazing to see how trusting vegans can be of a “vegan” product.
i think this is really impressive but i would never have thought of doing this much rigorous investigating. when i eat mock i have to know what its made out of because of the gluten-thing and so i feel like i’m pretty safe with my question-asking and label reading, but i never question that the stuff is probably made in a factory that also processes the NONEDIBLEs for vegans…
it also makes you think about what degree of ‘tainted’ we go by. most (almost all, i’m sure i know someone who’s more brutal but i can’t think of them) vegans i know will eat anything that doesnt contain the NONEDIBLES in the ingredients list and happily shrug off a “may contain traces of..” warning, which in the least severe cases on this investigation is probably the case of the results. lots of vegans i know (myself included) live with vegetarians and omnivores who use the same cutlery, plats and utensils as us and/or eat VEGAN (possibly made under our close supervision for paranoia’s sake) meals made by our understanding parents using the same equiptment they made a “normal” meal with.
undergoing the same testing, our meals would surely receive positive results for at least trace amounts of the NONEDIBLES, no?
aaah, this is so amazing and mind blowing and ridiculous i hope my comment wasnt too blah blah blah. i’m so impressed.