Vegetarian Guide to Label Reading

Vegans and vegetarians strive to avoid animal products in their diets. While the goal of avoiding 100% of animal products is practically impossible in our society, simply avoiding the major animal products such as meat, eggs, and dairy, brings us very close to that goal and does a great deal to improve health, reduce animal cruelty, and preserve the environment. Those who would like to go further and avoid the small amounts of animal ingredients present in many commercial foods can do so by familiarizing themselves with label reading.

Currently, there exist many different animal ingredient lists, most of which are outdated and over-inclusive. This guide attempts to point out most of the common "hidden" animal-derived ingredients as well as some that are commonly thought to be animal-derived, with rules of thumb for distinguishing between them. For quick reference, some ingredients are labelled in bold (animal derived) or underlined (possibly animal derived) in the section that describes them.

What's on a label?

Different products have different labelling requirements. Food products are generally required to list all ingredients constituting more than 0.1% by weight. Most other categories including alcoholic beverages, medicines, health and body care products, etc., have much less stringent requirements. Medicines for instance are only required to list active ingredients. Fortunately most companies are very responsive to phone calls and letters about their ingredients and many have toll-free numbers for such inquiries.

Common slaughterhouse derivatives

Among the most common animal ingredients are products made from boiling down (rendering) surplus animal fats and tissues. These include lard, animal shortening, gelatin, cholesterol, and tallow, which are animal derived by definition. Alternatives to gelatin include agar-agar, carrageenan, and cornstarch. Gelatinized starch refers to starch softened by boiling.

Also common are stearates, which includes almost any ingredient with -stear- in its name, and glycerides, including glycerin and almost any ingredient with -glycer- in its name (including datem, which stands for diacetyltartaric acid esters of monoglycerides). While these are sometimes derived from pure vegetable sources, they are generally produced by rendering a combination of animal and vegetable fats. See the section on Kosher for more information.

Dairy derivatives

There are numerous common milk products including cream, many varieties of cheese, butter, yogurt, etc. Less well-known are the fermented koumiss and kefir and Indian ghee and paneer. Margarine and soy milks are easy replacements for butter and milk. Vegetable oil marked "vegetable ghee" can be found in some place. The most difficult to avoid, however, are the individual constituents of milk, primarily lactose, casein, and whey.

Lactose, or milk sugar, should not be confused with the much more common lactic acid, or with galactose, which are not dairy derived. Lactose is generally indicate by -lacto- while lactic acid is indicated by -lact- in an ingredient name. Lactic acid can be safely assumed to be vegan unless its part of a compound such as a stearate (described above). Because of the large number of people who cannot properly digest lactose (lactose-intolerant), this ingredient is less common in commercial foods, but is frequently found as a base in medicines and other products.

Casein, a class of milk proteins and the primary constituent of cheese, is ironically often found in foods marked "non-dairy". This includes almost all varieties of soy cheese, which are generally marketed to people who are lactose-intolerant, not vegans. The non-dairy label was created to protect the dairy industry and indicates foods that were not primarily milk-based despite their similarity to dairy products. Happily, the label dairy-free means what it should.

Whey, the liquid remaining when casein is removed from milk, is often found in commercially prepared baked goods and as a binding agent for flavored chips and similar products.

Also worth mentioning is rennet or rennin, which is the agent used to coagulate many "hard" cheeses. Rennin is an enzyme taken from the stomach lining of slaughtered calves, which means that many cheeses are not really vegetarian. Cheeses with "microbial rennet" are however becoming very common.

Insect products

The largest commercial insect product is honey (one variant of which is propolis). Unfortunately, honey is extremely common as a sweetener in "natural foods" which often avoid most other superfluous animal ingredients. Maple syrup and white grape concentrate are good substitutes for honey in cooking. Other bee byproducts include beeswax (common in cosmetics), royal jelly, and bee pollen.

Carmine, cochineal, and carminic acid are red coloring agents made from a particular variety of beetle and are commonly found in colored pastas, drinks, and natural cosmetics. Shellac is another beetle derivative, occasionally used (along with beeswax or other waxes) to coat produce such as apples.

Silk is produced by silk worms (who are generally killed in the process) and is occasionally found in body care products in addition to fabric. Satin, which originally meant a particular kind of silk fabric, now almost always refers to nylon-based fabrics.

Other things to note

Egg products are usually very easy to spot, and can be replaced with a variety of alternatives. See our recommended reading list for vegan cook books.

Albumin (or egg whites), isinglass (a fish extract), gelatin, and whey are commonly used to remove sediment from wines, beers, and other beverages.

Lanolin is a waxy fat extracted from sheep wool found in many body care products, indicated by -lan- or -lano- in compound ingredients. Vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) is generally made from lanolin or fish oil, while D2 (ergocalciferol) is microbially sourced. Most vitamin D, including the kind in fortified milk and infant formula, is the D3 variety. See our pamphlet on vegan nutrition for more information about vitamin D.

Collagen, elastin, and keratin are other slaughterhouse byproducts made from hair, skin, and connective tissue that are also typically found in body care products such as shampoos and moisturizers.

Musk, and less commonly ambergris, civet, and sepia are animal extracts used in perfumes and scents.

Sugar?

In the US, approximately half of white table sugar (labelled cane sugar or sucrose or simply sugar) is made from sugar cane. The production of white sugar (and some brown sugar) from sugar cane involves a whitening step that is often accomplished by filtering the sugar with activated bone charcoal. While no animal products remain in the sugar, some vegans choose to avoid refined sugar and many products marked vegan exclude it as well. Alternatives to cane sugar include beet sugar (about as common as cane sugar), maple and date sugars, and partially refined cane sugar (labelled unrefined, unbleached, turbinado, demerarra, or raw sugar). Other non-sucrose sugars including maltose, dextrose, glucose, and fructose are also fine.

Natural? Organic? Vegetarian? Cruelty-free? No Animal Byproducts?

Bear in mind that labels can be deceptive. For instance, the label natural says nothing about its appropriateness for vegetarians and natural flavors or colors may include animal ingredients (though they often don't). Similar warnings apply for organic.

Sadly, vegetarian is a very loosely used word, and usually can only be relied on to mean "no red meat". Check for chicken, fish, meat stocks or flavors, and other ingredients mentioned above. More trustworthy are the labels "vegan" and to a lesser degree "100% vegetarian" (the latter may still include eggs and dairy). Note that neither of these are regulated by labelling law. Packages that display logos trademarked by vegetarian societies are the most reliable.

The cruelty-free label usually only indicates that the product was not animal tested, and it may still contain animal ingredients. It may even include ingredients that were animal tested by a supplier. Labels like against animal testing are even more vacuous. Look instead for "no animal testing" and "no animal ingredients". PETA and NEAVS have cruelty-free logos for products that conform to strict definition of the above. Note that items labelled no animal byproducts are questionable as well - they may just contain animal products.

What about Kosher certifications?

These are small logos that mark an item as suitable for people observing Kashrut (Jewish dietary law), and occasionally prove helpful for vegetarians reading ingredients. Among other things, Kosher law forbids eating meat with dairy which means that items marked as kosher may contain meat or dairy but not both. Foods marked "pareve" or "parve" have neither, although they may still contain eggs, fish, or honey and occasionally gelatin. More usefully, pareve foods are almost certain to have vegetable-derived stearates and glycerides and exclude almost all animal-based colorings or flavorings.

Items with a small "DE" next to the kosher logo indicate equipment previously exposed to dairy products was used to produce an item, but it is otherwise pareve. A small "D" may mean that the item contains dairy or was only produced with dairy equipment. As always, check the ingredients. Finally, note that a "P" indicates Kosher for Passover, not pareve.i

But what about...?

There are many products that are commonly rumored to include animal ingredients and the above covers most of the less obvious of them. Many others are indeed vegan (unless the label indicates otherwise), including:

calcium compounds, caramel color, cocoa butter, cooking charcoal, enriched flour, enzymes (other than rennin), Heinz ketchup, lecithin, molasses, paraffin, red #40, spices.

Final notes

A good source of information for vegetarians, including much of the information in this guide, is the Vegetarian Resource Group (www.vrg.org). Many hard-to-find vegan items can be ordered from Pangea (www.pangeaveg.com). For more information on veganism and animal rights, contact Compassionate Action for Animals (www.ca4a.org).