Vegan Food Products that Contains Animal Ingredients

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you may be aware of the obvious foods to avoid like meat, fish, dairy and bee-products, but some foods you might expect to be 100% vegan sometimes contain one or more animal-derived ingredients. The labels on such products can be confusing or even misleading.

For this reason, vegans must be cautious, and check the labelling and ingredients list carefully, when deciding whether to consume or avoid the following foods:

1. Bread Products: Many bakery products, such as breads and bagels, contain L-cysteine. This amino acid is used as a softening agent and is derived from either human hair or poultry feathers, and it can be found in many popular brand-name products like Lender’s, Einstein Bros., McDonald’s and Pizza Hut.
2. Naan-The very ‘desi’ naan that is commonly made in India might not be 100 percent vegetarian. It is a staple in Mughlai/Indian cuisine, but many a times the dough for naan is kneaded in eggs for giving the bread softness and elasticity.
3. Beer and Wine: Egg white albumen and gelatine (also known as casein is a product derived from animal body parts) are used in the beer brewing or winemaking process. Some manufacturers also use isinglass, a gelatin-like substance collected from bladders of the freshwater fish like the sturgeon to clarify their final product.
4. Sweets and Candies: Many varieties of jelly, marshmallows, gummy bears and chewing gums contain gelatine- a protein derived from the collagen in cow or pig bones, skin and connective tissues is used as a thickening or stabilizing agent. Others are coated in shellac or contain a red dye called carmine, which is made from cochineal scale insects.
5. Refined Sugar:  Sugar isn’t naturally white, so manufacturers process it using bone char, which is made from the bones of cattle. To avoid sugar filtered with bone char, purchase unrefined/unprocessed sugar or buy from brands that don’t use bone-char filters.
6. Vanilla Ice Cream: Part of the flavour and smell that you identify as vanilla in ice cream comes from the sacs of beavers. Beavers secrete a substance called castoreum that smells like vanilla. Because of this smell, it is used as part of a vanilla substitute. The additive is most often used in baked goods as a vanilla substitute, but it’s also been used in alcoholic beverages, puddings, ice cream, candy and chewing gum.
7. Cheese: There are certain kinds of cheese that are made from enzymes present in the gut of animals. The enzyme is called either rennet or chymosin, which is derived from the stomach of young animals such as lambs and calves. For instance, Parmesan cheese is usually made using the inner linings of the cows’ stomach.
8. Orange Juice: Some of the juices often contain omega-3s, which are sometimes derived from fish like anchovies, tilapia, and sardines. Also for purification of some juice (especially multivitamin-juice) gelatine is used.
9. Salad Dressing: The sauces or the dressings that make a bland salad look tasty, may contain egg. But, the salad dressings you have to watch out for are the ones with fish in them. The fish labelling may be concealed in the Worcestershire sauce labelling.
10. Potato Chips: Some flavoured potato chips, especially those flavoured with powdered cheese can contain casein, whey or animal-derived enzymes. For instance The BBQ flavoured chips are fried in animal fat or might use meaty flavours for giving that smoky and meaty taste.  Some branded products also use use bacon flavour to enhance the flavour.
11. Roasted Peanuts: Gelatine is sometimes used when manufacturing roasted peanuts in order to help salt and spices stick to the peanuts better.
12. Pastries: Some pastries are made with suet. Suet is the fatty tissue on the kidneys and loins of animals like cows and sheep.
13. Yogurt: The redness of yogurt doesn’t come from strawberries but from Cochineals scale insects that are grounded to make a red dye.
14. Chewing Gum: Stearic acid which is obtained from animal fats, mostly from a pig’s stomach is used in many chewing gums.
15. Pasta: Some types of pasta, especially fresh pasta, contain eggs.
16. Omega-3 Products: Many products with labels that boast their heart-healthy ingredients contain omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish. For example, Tropicana’s Heart Healthy orange juice’s label lists tilapia, sardine and anchovy as ingredients.