Vegan Rules

At the heart of things, the rules are simple. No animal products. No beef, poultry, fish, eggs, gelatin, milk, cheese, etc. Vegans usually don’t eat honey either.  As I mentioned in the first vegan post, veganism is more of a philosophy than a diet. There are some products that don’t actually contain animal by-products, but vegans don’t use these unless it is clear that the company supports animal welfare and doesn’t use animal testing. So, you may have seen vegan cosmetics, clothing, accessories, etc. 

I bought vegan vitamins in anticipation of this – that and I’ve found most other vitamins contain gelatin, which even as a vegetarian, I shouldn’t eat.  I actually just recently had a conversation with someone about gelatin as I was lamenting not being able to eat marshmallows and Jello and I had to Wikipedia it to be able to describe what it is and why I shouldn’t eat it.  Gelatin is a mixture “produced by partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from the skin, boiled crushed horn, hoof and bones, connective tissues, organs and some intestines of animals such as domesticated cattle, chicken, horses, and pigs.”

I also just recently learned that many bread products contain an amino acid called L-cysteine, which is used as a dough conditioner (http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/faqingredients.htm#cystine).  This is derived from human hair or duck feathers as well as pigs’ bristles and hooves. The most common source used to be human hair found on the floors of Chinese barbershops; today it is derived from Chinese duck feathers 80% of the time.  Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the bread aisle this weekend and had to put back several loaves of bread after spotting that ingredient on the label. 

I also just learned today that Advil is not vegan.  Someone had apparently contacted the company about this and posted this message in a blog: “Advil is not considered a vegan product. Advil® tablets and caplets contain stearic acid which is used as an inactive ingredient and is derived from a bovine source.” I knew I should have checked into this one sooner since I tend to get a headache at least once a week. I’ve been scouring Google and Drugstore.com to find an alternative, and so far I am coming up empty-handed. The good news is that I don’t have a headache yet…but I’ll probably get one soon if I keep scrolling through all these results and seeing ingredients like stearic acid and magnesium stearate and of course gelatin is a common one.  So…I may have to make pain relievers a possible exception if I wind up with a headache and haven’t found anything more vegan-appropriate.  Ugh.

But my emphasis will be on following a vegan diet as I don’t have the time or funding to replace my wardrobe and sort through all of my other accoutrements. I would venture to say that probably the majority of my belongings are probably not vegan-friendly.  Sadly enough.   However, I will commit to not purchasing any new household items that aren’t vegan during this time period.  I imagine that most vegan-converts don’t just completely dump out the contents of their home and go on a massive shopping spree to replace everything, so this approach seems fair enough. 

So, in summary, no purchasing or consuming animal products or by-products!