not vegan

Heinz mystery

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Here is a little bit of a Heinz mystery for you.

First up, I was tagged in a post on Twitter alerting me to the fact that the No Added Sugar baked beans are not suitable for vegans.

This was further corroborated by the Vegan Wiki Twitter account that posted a photo of the following sign:

Vegans everywhere are scratching our heads because we can’t work out why these beans aren’t vegan.

The company advertise their No Added Sugar beans as suitable for vegetarians. There are no warnings about milk, eggs, or any animal derived ingredients on the label.

So, do us vegan police have it all wrong? Are these No Added Sugar Beans actually suitable for our lifestyle after all and this is a case of crossed wires?

Apparently not, according to the company itself.

This Twitter exchange in which Teen VGN asks the company to confirm has them confirming that the beans are NOT vegan (although in a somewhat confusing and elusive manner).

So, there we have it.

No Added Sugar beans by Heinz are not suitable for vegans but we don’t no why. The term ‘proprietary’ means that it is secret and they don’t want to disclose the ingredient.

One possibly is that the vinegar used is not vegan as that can sometimes be filtered with animal products in a similar way to some alcohol. However, if this was the case, the product would not be vegetarian either.

Until we find out how and why, the best you can do is stop eating the No Added Sugar beans and ask your local bean-serving restaurants and cafés if they are using the product for any of the vegan dishes.

Also, in absence of information we can do nothing but wildly and hilariously speculate what the hell is in these beans.

Sure, we might guess honey or even lanolin but I’m sure you can come up with something more inventive.

Answers in the comments below!

Almost vegan

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I have been known to become a bit indignant when talking about Linda McCartney releasing more and more vegetarian products in place of vegan food, but this latest debacle takes the cake.

Is the company being immensely and mind-boggling shortsighted or are they being purposively antagonistic? I honestly can’t tell anymore.

Behold the brand new Linda McCartney Vegetarian pulled pork-style 1/4lb burgers. Yes, the company has borrowed a food innovation that has taken the vegan world by storm over the past decade (made with jackfruit originally) and made it vegetarian by adding one completely unnecessary ingredient.

Honey.

pork

Can you even believe it?!

With veganism breaking sales and growth records all over the world and UK newspapers trumpeting information about huge increases in people who identify as vegan, Linda McCartney made the decision to add one of the most redundant ingredients possible to what would otherwise be a market-changing vegan product. You can see the ingredients list here.

Do they have a marketing team with no critical thinking skills? Does the company not appreciate the potential value of an additional 200,000 or 300,000 retail customers? Is the company deliberately antagonising vegans by adding honey?

I can’t make sense of it. At all. Please put your theories in the comments below or tweet them to Linda McCartney here.

Also… would you like to know why honey is not vegan? Click here.

VBF-TWCover

Time for compassion

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Vegan food is creating headlines globally as media outlets fall over themselves to push plant-based eating as a trend in order to drive readership. You cannot go a week without a UK national news outlet trumpeting vegan food as the thing to watch. Even your friendly FGV got swept up in this recent wave of interest.

As exciting as this hyper-interest in meat and dairy free eating is, one important component is missing from all the stories.

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Not vegan

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Is this a world first?

I picked up a packet of sweets today, flipped it over and saw the words ‘suitable for vegetarians/vegans’. Great!

I could have stopped there and bought the packet of wickedly wild watermelon candy sticks but being the fussy vegan I am, I scanned the ingredients list.

First red flag? Beeswax. Second? Gelatine.

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This is not vegan

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I don’t know what goes on.

If you were creating a dairy free drink for the UK market, would you at least consider making a tiny bit more effort to ensure the product was suitable for vegans?

I stumbled upon this new soya and fruit drink today in Holland & Barrett and first thought I had found a vegan product. The bold packaging claim that it is dairy free made me hopeful.

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Beef juice

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Get ready to start questioning everything.

UPDATE: READ THE COMMENTS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST AND STOP DRINKING A HELL OF A LOT OF DRINKS!

A report out of Australia has shed light on the process of using beef gelatine to clarify fruit juice, much in the same way alcohol is filtered using animal derived ingredients to remove organic matter.

beef juice

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