Food labelling

[Phil B.]

Hi Vegans,
I have recently made the decision to follow a plant based vegan diet. No meat for nearly a week and eating some great foods. In the process of using up some food i have in the cupboards before i bring the hammer down totally. This also gives me a couple of weeks to research about suitable/unsuitable foods and build a knowledge base. Been looking at food labels to determine if something is vegan and am a little stumped. A couple of examples are a sports bar SIS Go Bar and their Rego drink. Can't see anything animal based in the ingredients list, but their website says not vegan (added vitamin D from an animal source). So how do you determine if something is vegan. Appreciate that 90% will be from whole foods, but the 10% from packaged products seems difficult to be sure. Any help/advice greatfully received.
Thanks, Phil.

 

[Olivia]

I normally will first check if the product is vegetarian first, and then check through the ingredients. All milk and egg should either be in bold or specified after the ingredient list, vitamin D is a tricky one because sometimes it comes from lanolin, which is made from wool. If you're still not sure after you've read the ingredients then give it a quick google, because someone, somewhere will have the answer. At first it's a bit tricky doing your shopping at a supermarket because having to check every single label gets frustrating, but after a few shops you'll know exactly what you can eat. I don't pretend to be an expert but I hope this helps.