Pitfalls

Once you get used to cutting meat out of your diet you can start checking labels for non- vegetarian ingredients, which include lots of by-products of the slaughter house as well as obvious things like meat, poultry and fish. Most vegetarians also choose to avoid battery eggs.

Luckily many vegetarian products are clearly marked as being suitable, including thousands of products which have our ‘Vegetarian Society Approved’ seedling symbol, guaranteeing that the product is 100% suitable to our own strict standards (including only free-range eggs).

If you come across products that aren’t clearly marked, it is best to take a look at the label. Common ingredients to steer clear of are gelatine (made from the bones and skin of slaughtered cows and pigs), animal fat (which always means carcass fat), fish oils and cochineal (E120 – crushed insects), which are never suitable for vegetarians. Lots of ready-meals and other products also contain battery eggs – even if they are marked as ‘suitable for vegetarians’.

Unfortunately there are also quite a lot of ingredients that can be made from both vegetarian and non vegetarian sources, so if you see them listed and the product is not marked as being vegetarian, you have to assume the worst. Ingredients that fit into this category include glycerine, lactose, magnesium stearate, stearic acid and whey, together with these E numbers opposite.

E numbers marked * may be theoretically made in a non-vegetarian version, but are practically always suitable.

Don’t worry – the list looks long but there are an awful lot of e-numbers in the world, so they don’t turn up on as many foods as you might think!