Shocking: Mock Meat = Real meat … Mock Cheese = Real Cheese

[Lean and Green]

Now that I got your attention, read up if you have a moment and let me know what’s up? (confused)

 

I found this to be absolutely HORRIFYING and sadly, truthful. It isn’t good enough to eat processed foods that are marketed as vegan these days. There is a decent chance you’re consuming dairy and even meat… This article is pretty lengthy but if you want the full story (which I HIGHLY suggest), then please follow this link:

 

read more

 

I summarized the conclusion of this article and the shocking exploited truths. If you want more proof of how this is so upon reading on this post, you have the link. Please feel free to share some comments. I am curious of other’s opinions and who already knew this as fact.

 

(conclusions from) Operation Pancake: Undercover investigation of LA vegan restaurants

 

Getting to the Root of the Problem

 

Feeling that we were on to something here, we decided to go “up the chain” beyond the restaurants to their suppliers, as many restaurants purchase their supplies (especially fake meats, many of which which cannot be manufactured in a typical restaurant kitchen) from a local bulk supplier. Just as a restaurant owner might visit Costco once a week to purchase toilet paper, they will also visit places like “Bodhi Vegetarian Supply” in Rosemead, CA to get their “veggie meats” and other ingredients. Bodhi Supply has stacks of freezers FULL of fake “veggie meats”, including all the variants you would typically find as ingredients in dishes from the restaurants that tested positive for egg and/or casein.

 

Posing as owners of a new LA area vegetarian restaurant, we arrived at Bodhi and asked to speak with a customer service manager. We were quickly introduced to a helpful lady who was ready to advise us on what products to buy. She was either the manager or the owner, and most definitely the senior person on-premise at that time.

 

She showed us to a freezer of “veggie chicken”, and we checked the ingredients on the label (all vegan). We asked her why some products have a better mouth texture than others, even though they have no eggs listed as ingredients, and after a long conversation and questions, she said the following:

 

“We buy most of this veggie meat from a manufacturer in Taiwan. It’s produced for the Taiwanese and Chinese vegetarian market then re-labeled for export, often to the USA. I do know of times when things have been labelled incorrectly, but I do my best to make sure that what they send me is what they say it is.”

 

Upon further questioning, she kindly gave us the email address of her contact in Taiwan. She specifically asked that we didn’t mention Bodhi Vegetarian Supply when we contacted them, and so we’re not disclosing the name of the manufacturer here.

 

From Rosemead to Taiwan

 

Posing as a potential US importer of allergen-free veggie meats, we emailed the Taiwanese manufacturer and asked whether their products could contain casein, whey, egg or milk without being listed on the label. We engaged in a an email exchange and we were also able to speak with somebody in the US who worked in the restaurant business in Taiwan for many years. The results of these interactions are paraphrased below, with with our emphasis in [square brackets]:

 

* In the Taiwanese and Chinese market [where most of these products are made and sold] vegetarian customers are only concerned with meat ingredients and not bothered at all if egg or milk ingredients are included [this is due to religious reasons in many cases, typically to accommodate Buddhists, who are often not vegan]

* Sometimes the ingredient listings are not 100% inclusive of what’s in the product [we asked what things are usually added but not labeled]

* Sometimes eggs, fish flakes and milk might be added but not on the label, and we never include ingredients of all the additives – there would be too many

* The veggie meats are re-labeled for the western market, usually by a non-English speaker who is translating the bulk ingredients list manifest, so there are many occasions where the translations were not correct. Also, the labels are small in size, and rarely have enough room for all ingredients.

* If the ingredients change due to cost or availability the list manifest isn’t always updated, and we only revise our translated labels when we introduce new products

* Most of the time, the “veggie meat” products contain egg albumen because the isolated soy protein base we purchase comes that way from the manufacturer

* There are few labeling regulations in Taiwan and they are rarely, if ever, enforced. We usually list the ingredients we put into food directly, but if if we’re using something from a third party we don’t always list the ingredients in that. It’s just not important in Taiwan.

 

So, we had just been told in no uncertain terms that egg-containing isolated soy protein COULD be used as an ingredient in veggie meats that were labelled appropriately for the Taiwanese market (ignoring the fact that eggs, in this case, were present in them). We can also assume that the egg ingredients were not written onto the label, as the original ingredients of the soy protein were not available at the time of labeling, and even if they were they would have been ignored as being irrelevant for the local market.

 

While none of this proves that non-vegan ingredients found their way from Taiwan to our local vegan Thai restaurant, it does show a suspicious chain of events, half-way around the world and well away from US FDA labeling requirements.

 

So, we decided to do some research into the matter and began with the Taiwanese media. Google led us to this recent story right away: “Over 50% of processed foods for vegetarians contain meat”, which we found to be absolutely shocking. After all, if vegetarian foods contain MEAT (in this case pork and beef), who knows what else they could really contain.

 

Remember: MOST, if not all, of the fake meats you buy come from Taiwan.

 

The Bottom Line

 

If you want to eat an entirely vegan diet where there’s no chance whatsoever of any non-vegan contamination, the only way is to grow your own raw materials, and prepare them at home, “seed to plate”. That’s not practical for most people these days, so we place our trust in establishments to prepare food for us, hopefully to reasonable standards of non-contamination.

 

Sadly, there are people out there ready to take advantage of any minority, particularly the operators of vegan Thai establishments who have a long and dubious record of serving non-vegan food items.

[beforewisdom]

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=18395

[after4ever]

Dr Shelton said about the need of forget the obsession for meat taste.

This is the solution.

 

I used sometimes "veganmeat" for proteins instead of tofu,

but now,I have doubts.I want understand more what there is in vegan meat.

 

 

thanks,very important,interesting and complete