medicines<\/a> and from photographs to cards. Equally, it can be made from a range of base products, the one thing these share being that they are not things vegans would want in their food or on their faces.<\/p>\nGelatine is derived from collagen, which is in turn is derived from animals. Pigs and cows are the most common sources, although fish-based gelatine is also available. Skin, bones, hides, trotters, feet is processed through a combination of boiling and chemical addition to create the finished gelatine. That then goes in your sweets. Enjoy.<\/p>\n
Progress in the Form of Synthetic Alternatives<\/h2>\n
Lots of the items mentioned above are still pretty commonly used and certainly isinglass, gelatine, cochineal, rennet and lanolin are fairly common ingredients in a range of foods and other commercial products. However, as we have noted when discussing some of the other rather unpleasant animal parts and derivatives, in lots of ways, times have changed.<\/p>\n
The items on our list are still used but the use of some things, such as L-cysteine from animal feathers in bread, is very much dying out. Similarly, lambskin condoms, whilst they have enjoyed something of a resurgence, make up only a small section of the overall condom market.<\/p>\n
In many ways, this shows that people are beginning to treat animals a little more fairly and that where possible synthetic alternatives are being used. Often, of course, this is down to commercial reasons, which is to say price, rather than ethics, but the end result for animals is the same.<\/p>\n
What we would also say is that you may find talk on the vegan grapevine of certain other unsavoury ingredients being used. In the modern world, it is always wise to fact check anything that sounds a little unbelievable, with misinformation spreading so easily in this age of unparalleled availability to the means of communication and media.<\/p>\n
For example, we have read of animal urine being widely used in goods, when in fact, urea is now produced almost exclusively by synthetic means. Musk, erroneously described as a genital secretion in some realms, is now also almost always synthetic<\/a>.<\/p>\nTo conclude, there are lots and lots of animal nasties being used in a huge number of different ways. But not as many as there used to be and not as many as some sources would have you believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":644,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.veganfriendly.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/food\/634"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.veganfriendly.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/food"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.veganfriendly.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/food"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.veganfriendly.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.veganfriendly.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}