{Animal products} Not on the label (BBC) [View All]

Ethical Man has discovered a whole range of food additives don’t even get listed on the ingredients.

I’m spending a month as vegan to see how cutting animal products out of my diet will affect my environmental footprint. It is surpisingly difficult to avoid animals; you'd be amazed how many foods contain animal products in some form or other.

There was a huge response when I wrote about my concerns that an amino acid used as an additive in bread is sometimes manufactured from human hair. I was reassured to discover that it is possible to avoid the substance – called L-Cysteine or E920 – because it is listed on the ingredients.

Then last week Britain’s leading organic baker, Andrew Whitely, wrote to me to warn of what he calls of “baking’s big secret” – the use of enzymes.

Andrew describes the use of these enzymes as secret because they do not appear on the label. Industrial bakers use a loophole to classify them as “processing aids”. The problem for a vegan like me – or for that matter for Jews, Muslims and vegetarians – is that some of these enzymes are manufactured from animals, including pigs.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/01/not_on_the_label.html

first part: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2007/01/does_your_daily_bread_contain_human_hair.html