Shopping Challenges

Jai

Jai

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Joined
May 4, 2019
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Location
Australia
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Oh boy, it certainly is a whole new learning experience when shopping, with 'animal-free' in mind.

Could not find suitable chocolate biscuits ANYWHERE in my local supermarket.

Bought some corn chips instead. But... there is milk buried in the ingredients !

Meatless 'Meat' offering there consist of some densely-packed protein garbage with no texture, comparable to a commercial hotdog made from sludge. Maybe that's what they're going for.

And while not an 'animal-free' issue, I casually investigated the ingredients of the "Butter" spread (which I have been using for years now, it's claimed to be an Olive Oil based product, I checked that there was no dairy. There isn't, but it does include Palm Oil.
 
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Bourbon biscuits are vegan.But from experience biscuits tend to contain palm oil.Perhaps you can bake chocolate biscuits at home?I don't know what mock meats are sold in Australia however the vegan mince isn't too bad in the UK it is good enough for a chilli con carne.Butters unfortunately tend to contain palm oil.
 
Well, Palm Oil has been attributed to mass deforestation in Indonesia, threatening the extinction of several animal species, most notably the Sumatran Orangutan. I guess by inadvertantly supporting these products, I have contributed to the problem.
 
Lou said:
Do they have Oreos in Australia?
Click to expand...
Hi Lou. I think they are here, but to be more specific I'm referring to chocolate *coated* biscuits. In the long run, if I'm to remove them from my diet, it will be for the better anyway, since I tend to binge-eat on them. And anyway I'm sure I will be able to track down some.dairy-free chocolate bars instead.

This thread is really more about 'venting' anyway haha.

I have to say, my old eyes have trouble reading ingredients lists these days. It almost seems that the suppliers are trying to hide, by making the font size so small. I notice too that often the color contrast between the font and the backgrounds are selected in such a way to obfuscate the ingredients from view, while still maintaining their legal requirement to list them.

These major food companies and the supermarkets are disgraceful in their behaviours, ethics and their misdirection.
 
Jai said:
I have to say, my old eyes have trouble reading ingredients lists these days.
Click to expand...

I have an app on my iPhone that turns the camera into a magnifying glass. It even uses the flash to illuminate the subject.

Another app I have is called "IsItVegan". you use the iPhone's camera to scan the barcode and it checks a database.

But the good news is that I hardly ever use those anymore. After a while, you figure out what is Ok and not. But i remember when i was getting started spending a ridiculous amount of time looking at the ingredients of bakery items. Those seem to be the hardest ones cause of butter, milk, and eggs.
 
Some good points there. For years I have used a website ethical.org.au where you plug in a product and you can drill down to find the parent company, the criticisms levelled against them (human rights abuses, price fixing, environmental degradation etc). I should check to see that if they have an app. Will also see if your suggested app works on Aussie products or if there's something similar.

I've used my phone sometimes to take a photo of ingredients then zooming in on the image. But that's not so practical in-store.

Just to mention, I've not bought any meat (etc) products since I started this journey, and HAVE purchased and consume dairy-containing foods. I'm not going to beat myself up over it, because as you said, its something one will figure out over time.
 
Lou said:
Have you seen this?
Click to expand...
I haven't, but I did stumble across an "accidentally vegan" guide from PETA.

I don't have much skill in the way of careful pre-planning for shopping though so will just work it out each time I go. In the end, I want to minimise my reliance on major retailers overall, since they are corrupt at their core, and regardless of what they sell for plant-based options.
 
It probably takes some time to find all your (favorite) alternatives, not all of them will be to your liking. But once you do find them, it's really not that big of a deal. The problem I'm struggling with more is packaging and palm oil. I like to avoid both as much as possible, which mostly works fine but still, it can be annoying
 

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