Where's The Beef? IT'S IN YOUR FRENCH FRIES!

In 1990, in order to eliminate cholesterol in their french fries and hash browns, McDonald's stopped frying their potato products in beef tallow. In the United States, McDonald's fries are now cooked in pure vegetable oil BUT these fries are still not suitable for vegetarians because they contain beef flavoring.

The McDonald's website lists the following ingredients for their french fries: "Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*), citric acid (preservative), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain color), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil ((may contain one of the following: Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness), dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent). *CONTAINS: WHEAT AND MILK (Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients)."

While McDonald's french fries are not cooked in beef fat anymore, they do contain a small amount of beef flavoring. Before being delivered to individual restaurants, the french fry suppliers wash, steam-peel, cut, blanch, dry, par-fry and then freeze the potatoes. Apparently, it is during the par-frying process that beef flavor is added. Before being served, the frozen fries are later cooked in pure vegetable oil. (In countries such as India and Fiji, with large populations of people who are vegetarian for religious reasons, McDonald's suppliers do not add beef extract to the fries).

Why would McDonald's add beef flavoring to french fried potatoes and hash browns? Well, the taste of any fried food is largely determined by the cooking oil and for years McDonald's had cooked its french fries in a mixture of about 93% beef tallow and 7% cottonseed oil. This mixture gave their fries a distinct flavor that the world had come to crave. When McDonald's changed to 100% vegetable oil the taste of their fries was altered and, in order to maintain the original flavor, a small amount of beef flavoring was added.

French fries are probably on the top ten list of the unhealthiest "foods" that you can put into a human body, but if you have to have your fry fix, stick to Burger King and Wendy's who do not use beef products in their fries.

Vegan Party Time - How About Some Vegetarian Wine?

Wine, by definition, typically contains only grapes, yeast, and a small amount of sulphites (some are are added and some are created during fermentation). But unbeknownst to most, many wine producers introduce very tiny amounts of substances that are not acceptable to vegetarians and vegans.

Most wines are made clear by adding clarifying or fining agents which remove proteins, yeasts, and other organic particles. Left in, these impurities can denature the wine making it unpalatable to drink or cause the wine to become cloudy or have loose sediment floating around. These fining agents are separated from the finished product and only minute traces if any are left in the finished wine.

While some clarifiers are earth-based, such as bentonite (a type of clay), many are animal-based. Common animal-based agents include egg albumen, casein, chitosan, gelatin, isinglass, and even cows blood (cows blood cannot be legally used as a clarifier for US or French wines). Gelatin is produced by prolonged boiling of animal skin and connective tissue (see the entry below regarding marshmallows) and isinglass is prepared from the bladder of the sturgeon fish.

While Kosher wines may be more likely to avoid the use of the animal-based clarifying agents, not all do so. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations stated that a wine could theoretically be certified as Kosher if it contained egg whites or if the gelatin was completely removed from the final product.

Winemakers are not required to include on the label which clarifier is used since it is removed from the final product. So how do you know if your favorite wine is vegetarian-friendly or not? It takes some searching but there are many excellent choices at all price levels. Check out the Vegans Are From Mars Wine Guide to see if your favorite wine made the list or browse the list and experiment. Another option is to select only wines that are labelled as "unfined" or "unfiltered" (a category that is gaining popularity in the US).

My overall favorite (I define "favorite" as tastes good, is widely available, and does not cost an arm and a leg, or a "hoof and a drumstick") is Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon (note that only red wines from Yellow Tail are vegan because their white wines use gelatin in the finishing process).

Are You Vegan? Do Your Friends Know?

The following Q & A from the Ideal Bite website was included in the August '08 issue of whole living / body + soul magazine:

Q: I recently stopped eating meat, but most people don't know this yet. So far, its become an issue only when I'm invited to a dinner party. To avoid hiding bits of steak in my napkin, is there a polite way to inform my hosts of my new dietary restriction?

A: This may sound cliched, but honesty really is the best policy. If you wait too long or don't say anything at all, your risk offending your host. Instead, as soon as you get an invitation, call the party-giver and let her know of your newfound eating habits. Assure her that you're low maintenance and will be fine with whatever delicious sides she plans on making. You can even offer to contribute a dish, so she knows you're not expecting her to refigure the whole menu just for little ol' you. When dinnertime rolls around, steer the conversation away from what you are or aren't eating. Yes, going meatless lightens your load on the earth, but lecturing doesn't make for good table talk. If the other guests prod you despite your attempts at deflection, throw out this tidbit: If 10,000 people replaced a beef meal with a vegetarian option just once a week for a year, we'd save enough water to fill roughly 605 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Some other interesting tidbits from grinning planet.com and environment.newscientist.com that were not included in the magazine blurb:

• A baby cow does not typically feed from its mother's teat, but rather is fed a bottled formula mix that contains (among other things) the blood of cows that have previously been slaughtered.
  
• Once a maturing cow leaves the pasture for the feed lots, it is typically given a feed mix that contains slaughterhouse waste—parts from cows, pigs, and chickens that have been ground up, rendered, and mixed with grain or other feed stocks.


• A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home.

How to Buy Vegan Marshmallows

Marshmallows were originally made with the gelling agent mucilate, produced from the extract of the marsh mallow plant. Mucilate is a mucusy substance that does not dissolve in water. Today, most commercially manufactured marshmallows use gelatin instead of real marsh mallow extract due to cost and availability. Gelatin (the stuff in your jiggly gelatin desserts) is derived from animal hides and bones.

Even most kosher pareve marshmallows are not suitable for vegans as they usually contain fish gelatin OR EVEN WORSE some contain gelatin derived from cows but are still labeled kosher pareve because gelatin is not technically "meat" or "dairy".

If you must have your s'mores, Sweet and Sara in Queens, New York claims to produce truly vegan marshmallows in standard vanilla as well as such nontraditional flavors as Mexican chocolate and toasted coconut. Unfortunately, I have not been successful in finding these locally in Asheville, NC.

If you are a pesco-vegetarian, your options increase substantially. Marshmallows made with fish gelatin are a perfect substitute but seem to dry out faster if not used quickly. Earth Fare grocery stores, located throughout the Southeast carries Elyon brand (made in Israel) that contain: sugar, corn syrup, water, kosher fish gelatin from Nile perch or tilapia, corn starch, and vanilla flavors. I am not sure if the sugar is processed with bone char (see post below).

Marshmallow fluff (the stuff in a jar) and other less firm marshmallow products many times do not contain gelatin but they do generally contain egg whites instead. These substitutes can be used by Ovo-vegetarians. But don't get overly excited - Have you ever tried to roast a glob of marshmallow fluff over a campfire?

Refined Sugar May Be Unhealthy To You, AND It Is Certainly Unhealthy To Some Animals

During the final purification process, cane sugar (but not beet sugar) is filtered through activated carbon (charcoal) which may be of animal, vegetable, or mineral origin. Over half of the cane refineries in the United States use bone char (charcoal made from animal bones) as their activated carbon source.

The bone char used in this filtering process is so far removed from its animal source and because none of the charcoal actually becomes part of the finished product, Jewish dietary laws still deem that cane sugar processed in this method is kosher pareve, meaning that it contains no meat or milk in any form as an ingredient. A number of vegans disagree with this perspective.

Beet sugar is not processed with charcoal but is usually labeled as "sugar" (not "beet sugar"). If you can find "beet sugar" on the package it is truly vegan. Several companies claim that none of their branded sugar uses any animal byproducts in its production. For instance, Florida Crystals claims on their website that their sugar that is labeled as "natural" is "made from pure sun-sweetened sugar cane with no additives or preservatives and no animal by-products used in production". And , Hawaii based Sugar In The Raw states that "Sugar In The Raw does not contain any animal by-product, nor does it come into contact with bone char or any other animal by-products during its manufacture. Sugar In The Raw is appropriate for vegan diets".

Is Honey Vegan?

Is the inclusion of honey in the diet acceptable if great care is taken to prevent the harming of any bees in its harvest from the hive? Also, since honey is produced by the bees to provide their own sustenance, how much honey should be left for the bees? Finally, if honey is acceptable, how can I purchase honey that is "bee friendly"?

These are questions that may not be "black or white". Please leave your comments and opinions...