Food Labels

I have been questioned lately on how I determine whether a product that I review is suitable for  vegans and I thought It would be a good idea to share my thoughts and invite you to tell me how you choose your vegan food.

You would think that this is easy, but it really can be a complicated issue as I will explain.

Firstly foods that are labelled suitable for vegans are vegan friendly.  However because of strict government allergy advice labelling you still may find “may contain milk traces” on the pack of a vegan product,   this is because that milk is used in the same factory and there is a slim chance of cross contamination of foodstuff.  Please see my article on vegan food production.  You will see the Vegan Society’s comments in this article as some of their approved products have this “may contain milk”.

From the Vegan Society

We categorically do not trademark any products that intentionally contain, or contain more than traces of, any animal product, by-product or derivative. Again, the words “may contain traces of…” are used to alert allergy sufferers to the outside possibility that at some point the product May have become contaminated at trace level. If we used this standard for the trademark, we would have almost no sign-posting to vegan consumers and it would discourage people from becoming vegan.

This allergy advice regulations have really affected food manufacturers,  many will not label their food vegan friendly because of the issue with cross contamination in the factory.  So they stick to the safer label of suitable for vegetarians, as vegetarians eat dairy and eggs.  This prevents any potential legal challenges if someone does have an allergic reaction.

There are some great vegan manufacturers out there who only have vegan food in their factory, but these are few and far between.

So as a vegan I have become a compulsive label checker.  If there is no vegan label, I will look for a suitable for vegetarians label,  then have a look at the allergy advice to see if it contains milk or eggs.  After that I read the ingredients list.   If I see an ingredient that I am not sure of,  then I check the internet,  usually it is e numbers that cause the most internet searches.  After that process I finally buy the product.

Whilst I make best efforts to check ingredients you can never be 100% sure that a product is vegan.  It may contain milk or egg traces, insects may end up in production process,  the vegetables may have been fed with animal byproducts in the fertilizer.   When the fruit and vegetable are picked and processed and delivered to the shops and handled by customers, who is to say that they have not recently touched some meat or dairy and contaminated the produce.

It really is a mine field, but all we can do is our best.