Hidden ingredients!

[honeysmum]

Just a though to everyone out there. I have been vegetarian for three years and I'm heading more to vegan (can't give up my yoghurt yet!). Was horrified when a new report here in Australia just recently reminded everyone about how important it is to check labels - two examples were frozen potato chips that were pre-cooked in beef tallow (pure fat) and that very same beef product is also used in tim tams! So ... if you are keen to keep to your moral, healthy or environmental choices read, read, read! My safest option over the past year is to eat almost 80% raw which basically avoids worrying about added ingredients in packaged products. Good luck everyone and remember - for every kilo of meat grown for human consumption, a hundred hungry third world children could have a meal.

[Sabriel]

I just read the ingredients if I'm not sure. But many things at my grocery store state if they are vegetarian or not now so it's a bit easier.

[samanthamuffin]

there are some really good soy based yogurts. i don't know if there are options available in your area though.

[stitsy&codyPig]

I am a vegetarian too! I was going to vegan but I thought about it and getting milk doesn't kill the animal so I just stayed vegetarian. Then I found out that the machines that they hook to the cow sucks so much that even when the cow is dry it is still sucking so it gets puss! Gross! So when we drink it or eat it we get a small amount of puss.

[Sabriel]

I would wonder where the puss is comming from. Puss usually forms due to infection. Are the cows injured in this process?

I am trying to cut back on milk and cheese but it seems trickier then cutting out meat.

[samanthamuffin]

yes. cows are hurt by the machines. dairy cows are slaughtered when they no longer can produce milk. also, by consuming dairy you are also supporting the veal industry. cows are kept pregnant to produce milk. if the calf is a female, she will either become a dairy cow or a hamburger. if the calf is a male, he becomes veal. just some things to think about....

[Sabriel]

I *know* all this and I am trying. I had a vegan dinner last night (cooked it myself and I have the burns to prove it :P I'm a horrible cook) I drink soy milk when I can find decent tasting soy milk, I buy vegan cheese when I'm near a store that sells it and I have stocked up with vegan cream cheese, but without a vehicle and a decent grocery store in the area it's a bit tricky. I make a monthly walk to Dominion to stock up on soy meat, but that can be frozen and kept fresh easier. I find soy dairy products don't keep fresh as long.

I also live in a 2 person household and my husband will never turn vegan or vegitarian ever. I know he won't. He ate dinner with me last night, but he would get very grumpy to say the least if we didn't have milk, cheese and eggs in the fridge.

Another reason I don't claim to be vegan is that I have a hard time finding products without eggs and milk in them. You'd be surprised what you can find eggs and milk in.

Another point is that obtaining milk doesn't have to be harmful whereas obtaining meat will always be. The farmer who milks his cows by hand and plucks eggs from his free range chickens nests is not harming them all that much. If we went back to compassionate farming meathods I don't see, aside from health issues, a problem with eggs and milk. I would like to have my own chickens someday. And if I do I will harvest and eat thier eggs (well up to my limit of one a week, but my husband would probably eat the rest)