Even Woolies has cows in its sweets!

Yuck! On behalf of all vegetarians, those who keep Kosher and Halaal and anyone else expecting to buy and eat candies free of animal ingredients - I protest! Read the accompanying article. How dare manufacturers masquerade bovine (cattle) gelatin as 'stabiliser'. Are these people daft? The quicker our Nanny State government gets to crack down on more accurate contents labelling, the better. I expect better from Beacon Sweets (owned by Tiger Brands) Cadbury Schweppes (their freakin' website doesn't even work - and they were zapped recently in the UK for Salmonella bacteria in their products),Kraft, Wilson+Rowntree (owned by Nestle) and Woolworths.

Comments

[Don]

I struggle to fathom how people today don't know what gelatin is made from, and especially what 'bovine' means.

People with special dietary requirements (vegetarians, Hindus) have to take it upon themselves to know what is made from what. After all, it is their choice to not eat certain things. Unfortunately for them, they need to read the fineprint.

Me? I just make sure that it doesn't contain raisins, 'cos they're just the devil...

[Clive Simpkins]

Don you naughty bugger! A plague of raisins upon you. We veggies do indeed read labels very carefully. But I'd have assumed (yeah, yeah) that 'stabliser' would have been a flour/cornmeal-like thickening agent. Not flippin' cows horns'n hooves. There are numerous alternatives like gum Arabic and Agar-agar. But I guess the cost price would be affected and retailers don't like that.

If someone's dof enough not to know what bovine is, they deserve to eat the darn stuff! ;-)

[Don]

Hehe. For sure. You're right about the 'stabiliser' thing tho. Sneaky sneaky.

What I don't get tho is did they really think they would never get caught out? Now veggies (your word ;-) ) are gonna protest Woolies and the rest of them purely for being liars, instead of them being upfront, and you guys would buy all the things that you can munch, passing by the bovine goods.

Sometimes people are just really really silly.

[Clive Simpkins]

Yeah, Woolies generally have a little 'V' sticker on stuff so you know you're not going to be ingesting anything icky. Guess they'll (being the pros they are) now extend that to the unhealthy stuff as well. But thank heavens for Wendy Knowler. She's proving to be a mover and shaker of a consumer journo. Brava!

[Essery Singh]

I think if one buys products, which were made by people of European, African or Middle Eastern origin where meat and especially Beef is of no consequence in their religion. It is also extremely difficult for them to understand the meaning of vegetarian and no meat, at times fish and eggs would be in the menu. So you cannot blame these people for being accommodating and changing Beef to bovine etc. One should also take not that members of the Sikh community do not consume Halaal or Kosher food, we do not consume any animal that has been slaughtered in a religious ritual. If you want to eat an animal, slaughter it and eat it do not get God to condone this act of taking a life. So don’t buy these products rather buy products from India.

[Jackie Ford]

If you are a serious vegetarian or vegan you read labels and make sure that nothing has hidden dairy, eggs or meat products.

Plus nowadays you also have to check that labels say no-GMO as most vegetarians and vegans prefer organic rather than GMO-products that have been mucked around with by scientists.

I find Woolies are great as they do label things properly if you take the time to look.

[Clive Simpkins]

Jackie, hi! You're right about reading labels - which I do. However, when you read that some manufacturers use the term 'stabiliser' instead of saying it's gelatin, that's slightly scary. Did you know that? I certainly didn't, until Wendy Knowler (all strength to her keyboared!) wrote about it. And there are stabilisers in Woolies yoghurt according to the label. So my question to Woolies is, 'of what kind?'

[Jackie Ford]

Yes there are many hidden problems even with labeling.

I think that's why I try to eat as much wholefood as possible so I know what I am actually eating.

My latest problem is many soy milks have been taken over buy a large manufacturer and suddently the GMO-free soybean label now makes no mention of whether they are GMO or not and the company gave me the run around when I requested an answer. So now I boycott all their products as I can no longer trust any of their cereals either.