by Jason on January 30, 2006
As many vegans know, red food colouring can often be derived from crushed insects, but you’d never know it from reading the ingredient labels. As Steve_L notes, the FDA is actually thinking of revising its rules regarding insect-derived food additives, and the words carmine or cochineal extract may soon show up on product labels soon – while it’s not as helpful as “bug guts,” it’s a whole lot better than “colour added.” As is usually the case, vegetarians aren’t the motivating force behind this – it’s the people with food sensitivities. I think that’s the way it should be: if we as a people change our ingredient labeling standards out of sensitivity to other people, it’s only a small step before we change our menu items as well. Link.
by Jason on January 26, 2006
Feel bad that you went through so much trouble to find a vegan wine, but vegan cheese sucks ass so bad that your wine and cheese event made you a social pariah? Here’s a tip for next time: skip the cheese altogether. Apparently cheese suppresses most of the flavours in wine, reducing it to just another alcohol source. Scientists aren’t sure what causes the loss in flavour, but anything that gives credence to my wine and hummus parties is good news in my book. Nessie sent this in a few days back, but we were holding back so we could time it to coincide with a long-overdue booze list update. The backlog has proven to be a challenge, but we’re putting in a few a day until it’s done. Link.
by Jason on December 21, 2005
If you’re a fan of “Yupi Gummi Pizza,” I’m tempted to ask what’s the matter with you, but I guess we all have our strange junk food fetishes, like chocolate chip hummus (anyone?) Now, you’re probably all avid label readers, but as Nessie notes, they’ve got gelatin in them, and gelatin, as everyone except my ex-girlfriend knows, is made from cows. What’s notable in this story is that the packaging had some kind of green dot on it that was supposed to indicate it contained purely vegetarian contents. It’s always worth reading ingredient lables yourself, even if they say “Vegan” on the package (and it’s not a bad plan to re-read every few months in case things mysteriously change). Link.
by Jason on December 2, 2005
Dagda Samildanc sent in a couple of cheese stories, also known as “things the vegan world doesn’t have to worry about,” although it’d be kinda nice to have problems related to cheese poppers, if only some soy company would step up. This would be an easy product, what with lot of poppers being sold in bars to drunk people, who aren’t the greatest taste testers anyway. Oh, right, the “what I’m talking about part” – a woman is suing her local Pizza Hut because somehow naming a product “Hot Poppers” isn’t sufficient warning that they’re a) hot, and b) pop. She burned her chin, and as the tradition goes, she’s a’suing. Link. Cheese story numero dos: San Diego, or an area near there, actually commissioned a “multi-agency task force” to investigate sales of illegal cheese, A.K.A. the kind of cheese that can kill you faster than regular cheese can. Straight dairy’s a clear gateway to this kind of stuff, and someone’s got to think of the children! Multi-agency task force (codename: Bananazilla), it’d save a lot of taxpayer money if you’d attack the source of the problem. Link.
by Jason on November 8, 2005
While we all pretty much know to look out for wool and silk when we buy clothes, what about eggs? We Make Money Not Art reports that a Japanese company is selling pants made (partly) from the membrane that lines the inside of chicken eggs. Each pair of pants uses about 8 eggs, and the end result is a product that apparently dries more easily than regular polyester does. When you think about it, there are all kinds of stain resistant products and sprays on the market, and I have no idea what’s in any of them. One strategy for coping with this trend would be to go with sweatshop-free clothes whenever possible, which happen to be made from simpler base ingredients, if we could just find more options that weren’t t-shirts and track pants… Link.
by Jason on July 25, 2005
Curses sends word of another finger food story: this time it’s a fingertip found in a piece of cornbread, and it was found by Felipe Rocha, an inmate of a California prison. The twist? Rocha’s a vegetarian, and the food company’s admitted that they probably goofed. Rocha is suing for $75,000, claiming that he couldn’t eat for 6 days after the discovery. On the bright side, it looks like California inmates can eat (mostly) vegetarian meals.
I’m hoping that this is one of those art projects that doesn’t have to actually exist as described to get the point across: igotyourmeat sent in a link to vivoLabs, an “art studio/laboratory” that claims to have cultured rat smooth muscle and blotting membranes to make… artificial hymens.
by Jason on April 30, 2005
I knew that Peruvians ate guinea pigs, but until today I wasn’t aware that frog cocktails were a popular choice in the region. Yes, frog cocktails. They’re taken for their supposed aphrodisiac qualities. The article suggests that they’re blended up, super-bassomatic style. It looks like the practice itself isn’t illegal (customers can pick out the frog they want from a tank, lobster style), but officials recently confiscated 4,000 endangered frogs. I believe the species was endangered – when you find frogs in crates at an abbatoir, the endangerment of the individual is pretty much a given. There’s not a lot to go on in the article, does anyone else have more information on the drink?
