Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

Well I just cought Soya Kaas, their VEGAN cheese. The rest is when morning star, galaxy and others started going vegan and on the market so 8-10 years ago. They have since changed and taken that out.

vegan.org is also no longer taking on new products when I checked a few days ago.

I don't remember Soya Kaas ever being vegan. I was pissed off when Morningstar added crap into their previously-vegan crumbles without changing the packaging (other than the ingredients list) and I refuse to buy any more products from that line now. I thought you were saying the products were labelled vegan but were not. You're just saying some vegetarian products you thought should be vegan aren't/

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No, morning star said vegan and had whey at one point. And look at soya kaas website and you will see there is a vegan cheese!!

I thought you were saying the products were labelled vegan but were not. You're just saying some vegetarian products you thought should be vegan aren't/

I KNOW WHATS VEGAN AND WHATS NOT!!!!!!!!!!! I LOOK AT VEGAN ONLY NOT VEGETARIAN CRAP!!!!

Like Chris said, there are independent organizations like Vegan Action who ARE doing it, but don't ever expect it to be done under something of a governmental force. I agree with Chris, that would be a recipe for disaster, any time the government wants to get it's hands into something like this, it will end up worse for us in the end.

By true definition, sugar processed with bone char filtration doesn't actually contain animal by-products in the finished sugar, so your stance is akin to saying that it is not vegan to eat food that could have been cooked on a grill that touched animal products but didn't put any actual animal-based ingredient into the final item. Or, that if someone handling non-vegan products touched your vegan food. Or, if it was produced on shared equipment as with the chocolate issue noted earlier. I'm not saying this to justify a stance of not caring about these factors or to say that any viewpoint is better than the other, but by honest definition, it is still vegan either way (if there is no change to the content of the final product which is still animal-free), and it is PERSONAL interpretation as to whether you or I call it vegan or not. Makes no difference if you're a new vegan or have been in the game 20 years, it doens't change the true definition of what is technically vegan just because we're grossed out at all the things that happen in the process that may not actually make the end product any less vegan by definition.



I have come across a few items that had honey that claimed to be vegan (of which I contacted those companies to explain why they needed to make a correction in such cases, and they always did in due time), but I have never, ever seen anything containing milk, eggs, gelatin or anything else that claimed to be vegan on labeling, and my job is to check every product on the market that I come across. I'm curious as to what brands/items you've found that had such listings as "vegan" that openly listed very non-vegan ingredients as I'd like to check into those companies more if there's information out there. I'm always up to give anyone an earful when they make claims that aren't proper, so if you recall any of those items, feel free to share as it'd be best to rally as many people to let them know such items shouldn't be labeled that way.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

I have come across a few items that had honey that claimed to be vegan (of which I contacted those companies to explain why they needed to make a correction in such cases, and they always did in due time), but I have never, ever seen anything containing milk, eggs, gelatin or anything else that claimed to be vegan on labeling, and my job is to check every product on the market that I come across. I'm curious as to what brands/items you've found that had such listings as "vegan" that openly listed very non-vegan ingredients as I'd like to check into those companies more if there's information out there. I'm always up to give anyone an earful when they make claims that aren't proper, so if you recall any of those items, feel free to share as it'd be best to rally as many people to let them know such items shouldn't be labeled that way.

I already posted who, look on the website and you will see there is vegan. But don't bother cuz I already took care of it. As for the others, I CLEARLY STATED 8-10 YEARS AGO WHICH MANY OF US ALREADY TOOK CARE OF. As for honey so "vegan" consider it vegan! I don't but some do.

Uh, I just checked the SoyKaas site, and their "vegan" cheese seems to actually be vegan. Here are the ingredients for their mozzarella:

Filtered water, tapioca starch, brown rice flour, organic canola oil (expeller pressed non-hydrogenated), salt, xanthan gum, carob bean gum, guar gum, carrageenan, oat flour, natural flavor.

**EDIT** - The "natural flavor" MAY have a slim chance of containing dairy, that is a grey-area that needs to be addressed with manufacturers directly in order to verify or not and should always be questioned in cases like this just to be sure. It's PROBABLY all vegan, but might be difficult to get a straight answer on based on manufacturer's rights to trade secret on proprietary flavor blends.

To ask, was this quote from their site what made you state that it wasn't vegan?

"Soy Kaas Vegan Soy Mozzarella contains no cassinate, is lactose free but is not dairy free."

This is the tricky part - many companies do NOT have any idea how to list allergen notices, so they will often say "may contain dairy" or something that's completely ambiguous to make people believe that they ingredients listing may not be accuate. However, what most people don't realize is that the FDA will shut your production down faster than you can snap your fingers if you're not properly listing what is in the product. If an item has a note that says "may contain dairy" but does not list any dairy in the ingredients listing, that should be taken as an allergen notice, NOT an indication that the product is not vegan. Unfortunately, many vegans haven't learned the ins and outs of allergen notices and how tricky they can be, so they make assumptions that aren't always correct and often will rule out items that truly are vegan, but their interpretation tells them otherwise.

Just curious on that, as it seems the vegan Soy Kaas is vegan after all, but that one note in the description is what will throw most people off.

You won't get any battle out of me on honey, by true definition, it isn't vegan, there's really no devate on it in that regard.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

Soy Kaas Vegan Soy Cheddar contains no cassinate, is lactose free but is not dairy free.

Does it say may contain dairy? No it say's is not dairy free! I have already spoke to them. Plus if you look at the company they have a history and not listing things on the label cuz FDA pulled their product a few years ago. But again that is not an allergy warning that say's NOT DAIRY FREE

Looking at their site now as VeganEssentials pointed out, there's a "Soy Kaas Vegan". I think that used to be named Vegi-Kaas, at which time all the "Soy Kaas" products contained casein, but it appears they've since rebranded the line.

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Correct. There appear to be two lines now, so it isn't quite fair to come out and say that Soy Kaas DOESN'T make anything vegan when the new line appears as though it probably IS vegan now that they made a casein-free/lactose-free line.

RawFitnessGurl, I think that you are completely missing what I wrote with that line quoted from their site. There is NO guideline as to how companies must list allergen notices (hence the great variance in how each company will note it), so the line you questioned below doesn't prove one thing about dairy being in the final product, just that because of the wording, you're assuming it isn't vegan without fact to prove it. Do you see dairy listed in the ingredients? No. So, where is your basis for conclusing that this note is NOT an allergen notice as is commonly done and MUST prove that it's not vegan? Again, the only *potential* non-vegan ingredient would be if they use any dairy-based flavorings in their cheeses, which is unlikely (much more common in things like flavorings in many protein powders and such vs. grocery items), but there's a slim chance. But again, without knowing the proprietary blend, you're only making an assumption and don't have proof to show it ins't vegan other than a poorly worded note that appears to the trained eye to be no more than another allergen notice. Considering companies aren't really keen on lawsuits, many will simply make things look completely unappealing to chance for those with serious allergies, which is why I've seen my share of vegan items that say things like "May contain dairy" rather than being clear and stating "Made in a facility that also processes dairy". It's a pet peeve of mine that more vegans don't learn this fact, because there are multiple times each week I have to clarify this to people who assume rather than take the time to identify such notes properly.

I will contact Soya Kaas next week when they reopen and clarify this. I'm willing to stake quite a bit that I'm correct in it being vegan, but until people finally figure out how to decipher allergen notices properly, a lot of vegans are going to keep missing out on stuff they COULD be eating, all because they assume "may contain traces of dairy" or something similar means it isn't a vegan product, which is incorrect. Soy Kaas' note is not at all confirming there's actual dairy in the product and is almost certainly leaning toward being a note to steer anyone with a potential allergen concern away from gambling with their product due to cross contaminaion issues. All I can say is this - a company opens themselves to HUGE litigation potential if they're inaccurate about allergens and mislabel ingredients (don't confuse a mis-produced batch with something intentionally mis-labeled, aka the issue with Silk soymilk some years back where dairy milk had accidentally been put into the Silk cartons in a production run). Heck, the only company I know of who DID intentionally mis-label a non-vegan product as vegan closed up shop and disappeared into the night because they were about to be the target of numerous lawsuits and an FDA investigation. It's not really that easy for companies in food manufacturing to simply lie about what's in their product - by law, they MUST have accurate labeling, and if there IS somehow dairy in Soy Kaas' vegan line, it would have to be in the flavoring because that's the only way they could state it to actually contain dairy legally. The FDA takes mis-labeling regarding allergens and things that have a propensity to cause food-borne illness such as dairy listings very seriously, so there's zero reason anyone would say there are dairy ingredients in an item that doesn't contain them. Heck, you can't even legally call cheap frozen desserts "ice cream" unless it contains a minimum of 10% milk fat and a minimum of 20% milk solids, so you can see why it doesn't make sense to assume that the statement on Soy Kaas' site is looking more and more like an allergen notice.

One final question, when you said you called Soy Kaas, was this recently, some time ago, etc.? Did you speak with a general service agent or a chemist or product specialist? That right there can make ALL the difference in the world for what answer you will get. Most general service agents who answer phones at food companies have a short list of stock answers to get people off the phone as quickly as possible, and sometimes their info is less-than-perfect, and I've even had people make up false details when they didn't know the answer. That's why I NEVER recommend taking the info from a general service agent as the final say, if it's a technical question, ALWAYS speak either with a chemist, product formulator or product specialist and demand to know clarification on any unclear allergen notices or statements of "Contains dairy" if there's no dairy-based ingredients in the listing of ingredients. It's the only way to know, and if I feel the need, I'll sometimes speak with two or three different sources within a company to ensure my inforamtion is accurate.

Anyone else besides me remember the Green & Black's chocolate labeling debacle from a few years ago? If you do, you'll know exactly where I'm coming from with all this.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

"Garden of life" uses animal derived vitamin D in products they call "vegan." When I emailed them about it, they said I was mistaken, it's vegan because they feed the animal derived vitamin D to yeast, then they put the yeast into the product, so it's fine and I shouldn't worry about it. Then they quoted the Vegan Society definition and underlined the "as far as possible and practical" part. That is the only company I remember by name, because their products are still featured in the health food store I go to.

And, as far as wanting government regulations on labeling, I want it to be similar to the "kosher" labeling. Depending which rabbi you ask, you will get different explanations of what is and is not kosher. Some rabbis will allow things that are not expressly written because they meet the requirements while others will not allow anything that is not listed by name. But, kosher is protected by law, vegan is not.

The problem with varying definitions of veganism is that most people don't even know what it is. Even "vegans" seem to be confused a large percentage of the time.

Veganism is "a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals."

They call it a "vegan diet" because that is what we do, not the other way around. Vegans practice a total vegetarian diet because that is the easiest way to make the biggest impact on animal exploitation. Because the most easily recognizable difference between vegans and non-vegans is what we eat, that has come to define us, but we shouldn't let it.

Honey is not suitable for vegans because the bees are being exploited to get the honey. If you happen upon an abandoned bee hive that still contains honey, that would be a personal decision on whether you were to take the honey or not, because it is not the consumption of the animal products that matters it is the wanting to exclude exploitation from your life.

As far as animal byproducts being used as processing agents, those products are not suitable because they provide a revenue stream for slaughterhouses. They are called "byproducts" for a reason. It is a product that is made as a result of the production of some other product. It would be called waste if they couldn't use it for something. It makes exploiting animals just that little bit more profitable, thus helping to sustain the animal exploitation business.

That's not good.

There's a big difference in being confused versus disagreeing. Crops are still pollinated by bees raised and sold for that purpose, manure and other byproducts are still used as fertilizer. Those aren't on the label. There's a practical line that has to be drawn in terms of how strict one can actually be relative to some ideal view of being vegan, and that's where there's disagreement.

There's nothing magical about the animal kingdom. I really don't see how a sea sponges are worthy of any ethical consideration since they completely lack a nervous system. Along the same lines I could entertain the argument that bees are simple enough that they don't either, though I don't really agree with that. If we're following this just to match some definition, rather than considering the whys of it all, then that's a problem.

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Yeah, Garden of Life sucks. I don't think anyone has spent as much time as I have arguing with them over the issue where their "vegan" D3 is technically anything but vegan (my usual analogy is that it's akin to saying you need to kill a cow to create a veggie burger). They're a lost cause, it's all a marketing gimmick that is trying to pull the wool over they eyes of the vegan community (couldn't resist using that line here ). There's a big difference to me between making up a b.s. system like they have to justify why vegans should take it, but then again, they're out to make money and have had some legal battles over false claims in the past. Expect that one day, they're going to back down on the "vegan" claim, and for those that don't know, they've said they're eventually putting the "vegan" D3 into their other protein powders and vitamin blends, so eventually, expect that what actual vegan items they have will probably be gone completely.



But, the difference being that we'd need to classify veganism as a religion to gain the same rights, which I don't see happening any time. And, if veganism were considered religion, I honestly don't think I'd call myself a vegan any longer (still live it, just not go by that name). Not to mention, any certifying agency would need to be comprised of vegans who all shared the same concept of what were the certifying policies and conditions and could not be tainted by outside input or hands. That's where this gets far too complicated for considering that we'll ever have some sort of legal protection. Unfortunately, Kosher doesn't always mean much, either. Emes had a rabbi come in for kosher certification on their products, and when the crash came where it was revealed that Emes was using fish gelatin in their supposedly vegan gel substitutes, the rabbi revealed that he basically walked in, took a check, and walked out, never doing any checking to even see if the quality control and ingredients labeling were accurate and had zero concern for knowing what was really in the items. One more reason to have distrust in certifying agencies, even those who are claiming to be doing it for people based on a religious standpoint.



True, but the argument I have gotten from so many others who see things like bone char sugar as a grey area they don't worry about, their point often has been this - there are so many things we make concessions on daily that are non-essential but technically vegan (and sometimes, things we know are probably non-vegan we still use), they don't necessarily feel that some things that an end-product vegan item needs in order to be manufactured are their greatest concern.

One person I was discussing this with told me something to the effect of, "I wear vegan material shoes that probably have bone-based glues in them (New Balance). I know that when I shop at Whole Foods, part of the money I give them is going back to purchase meat/dairy/eggs, and that not everything in their store is vegan and they require non-vegan things to operate in order to provide me with what I need. I know my car I drive has animal-based ingredients in the components, and while I could take the bus, it's not my mission to be 100% pure to avoid EVERYTHING that I could just to feel better about myself." And I could understand where he was coming from - his world involved doing what he could to consciously make decisions that he attributed to directly reducing suffering, and his thought was that if he wanted to eat a pack of Sweet Tarts from time to time, it didn't make him any less vegan than the next person. I can neither prove him right or wrong, but when I heard this notion a long time ago, it did make me think about how many vegans out there do pick and choose what to be aware of for avoiding and where they will occasionally play on the grey area things to suit their wants at a given time. Since we can never be 100% pure, we each have to draw our own lines, and supporting a product that might use bone char in the filtration of their sugar, how is it so truly different from giving in to something else that's not a 100% necessity for living, but is something you really want to have/use/consume/etc. such as a vehicle that's not necessary, items that are non-essential that may have required stearic acid to make rubber/plastics, etc.?

Again, I'm not trying to justify that position by any means, but am simply trying to share for argument's sake the mindset that I'm coming across more and more as time goes on. I always enjoy hearing how people view this issue, since it's always got lots of room to debate on.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

Hey veganessentials,
I know what an allergy warning is. It clearly states that it contains dairy. And if it is in there it must be in the natural flavors. They just emailed me today, after a week saying it is vegan. But again say's contains dairy.

Good for you for calling every company, been there done that! You call and do whatever you want, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid when it say's contains dairy.

And no I don't remember that chocolate you are talking about 'cuz I keep my diet pure and clean.

nevermind

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