by Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

VRG Research Director

In August 2011, we received an email from someone asking if calcium carbonate derived from oyster shells could be in food products. She relayed to us a correspondence she had received by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which stated that “It is possible to have food products contain calcium carbonate that was derived from shells.”

The VRG surveyed several major soy and rice beverage manufacturers and vitamin companies to determine how common oyster shell is in their products today. We were informed in September 2011 by Heather, a customer service representative at SoyDream®, a Hain Celestial® product, that “all SoyDream® non-dairy beverages in the US and Canada are vegan,” and “the calcium carbonate is sourced from rock.”

Christie, a customer service representative with Eden Foods®, maker of EdenSoy®, told the VRG in October 2011 that their calcium carbonate is “from a non-animal, mineral source.”

Dee, a representative of Natures Promise® products, told us in September 2011 that the calcium carbonate in their soy and rice beverages is “from limestone.”

The VRG also contacted Caltrate® and CitraCal®, two major calcium supplement companies. Representatives told us that “There are no animal ingredients” in Caltrate®; and that their calcium carbonate is “from the earth.” We were also informed that the calcium carbonate in CitraCal® is derived “from limestone.”

The FDA correspondence received by our reader also contained this statement: “If there is someone that has an allergy to shellfish, we would suggest staying away from products or supplements that contain calcium carbonate.”

The writer was puzzled by this FDA recommendation that appears overly cautious in light of FDA’s own regulations (see below). The VRG contacted two separate offices at the FDA several times by phone and email over a three-month period to ask about the labeling of calcium carbonate. We did not receive a response.

The writer was curious to know if, perhaps mandated by the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004, (FALCPA), a product containing shellfish-derived shell components had to be labeled as containing a “major food allergen.” In fact, the vitamin company, Country Life®, labels its Calcium Magnesium Zinc with L-Glutamic Acid® dietary supplement containing calcium carbonate as “contains shellfish (oyster shell).” This “contains” statement appears as those required by FALCPA. http://www.country-life.com/moreinfo.cfm?Category=7&Product_ID=93

Without confirmation from the FDA, it appears to the writer that it is not mandatory under FALCPA for a food, beverage, or dietary supplement company to label products containing calcium carbonate derived from oyster shell as containing shellfish (“a major food allergen”). Looking more closely at the regulation itself, the wording explicitly states that it is the “protein” in the major food allergen that causes the allergy and, if present, must be labeled. If the mineral portion of shells is separated from the portion containing some carbohydrate and protein components naturally present in shells, the exclusively mineral calcium carbonate shell components are excluded from this labeling requirement. (Using analogous reasoning, FALCPA excludes highly refined soy oil from labeling requirements since it would not contain soy protein, another “major food allergen.”)

Furthermore, FALCPA clearly states that “crustacean shellfish” is the potential shellfish allergen. Oysters are not crustaceans. (Shrimp and lobster are.) Oysters (and clams) belong to the class of “shellfish” known as mollusks. For this reason alone, neither oyster protein nor oyster shell would need to be labeled under FALCPA, even though companies may, (and often do), disclose any oyster component in their products voluntarily.

It would be helpful to vegans if FALCPA required shell labeling but it does not. When there is a question about the source of calcium carbonate in a food, beverage, or dietary supplement, vegans must contact the products manufacturer. To learn more about FALCPA, readers may visit this page on the FDA website:
http://www.fda.gov/Food/LabelingNutrition/FoodAllergensLabeling/default.htm

The contents of this article, our website, and our other publications, including The Vegetarian Journal, are not intended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained from a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient information from company employees or company statements. Information does change and mistakes are always possible. Please use your own best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. Further research or confirmation may be warranted.

For more information on food processing methods and food ingredients and to purchase our Guide to Food Ingredients, please visit our website at http://www.vrg.org/ingredients/index.php

For updates on ingredients and other information of interest to vegetarians and vegans, please subscribe to our free enewsletter at
http://www.vrg.org/vrgnews/

There are many ways to stay connected to The Vegetarian Resource Group!
Get our blog delivered right to your inbox:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheVRGBlog
Visit us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/VegResourceGrp
and friend us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/thevegetarianresourcegroup

Support for VRG research and outreach can be made at
https://www.givedirect.org/give/givefrm.asp?CID=1565

You may be familiar with Subway’s “Veggie Max” veggie patty, which has been available in many locations for several years. The new “Totally-Vegged” veggie patty is 100% vegan and it even looks different with a more rounded shape and “meatier” texture.

If you live in Canada, please call or stop by your local Subway restaurant to find out if they offer it. If they do, be sure to thank them and also let us know the address — and if they don’t have it yet, politely ask them to start dishing out this delicious vegan patty! If you decide to order it we would love to hear your feedback. Please email [email protected], call (410) 366-8343, or write to PO Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203

Here is a list of know Subway restaurants in Canada offering the “Totally Vegged” vegan patty:

• AB: 2500 University Ave., NW in Calgary – 403-220-1571
• BC: 4744 Lakelse Ave. in Terrace – 250-635-1994
• BC: 2323 Boundary Rd. in Vancouver – 604-205-5060
• BC: 2640 Arbutus St. in Vancouver – 604-737-7421
• BC: 200 Burrard St. in Vancouver – 604-662-3962
• BC: 3790 Canada Way in Vancouver – 604-433-4742
• BC: 4108 Fraser St. in Vancouver – 604-874-9885
• BC: 5931 Hastings St, in Vancouver -604-299-0449
• BC: 1256 Lynn Valley Rd. in Vancouver – 604-986-7825
• BC: 7645 Royal Oak Ave. in Vancouver 604-430-4441
• BC: 333 Seymour Blvd in Vancouver – 604-904-9923
• BC: 6402 Victoria Dr. in Vancouver – 604-301-1895
• BC: 700 W. 6th Ave. in Vancouver – 604-879-7824
• BC: 433 W. Broadway in Vancouver – 604-569-3961 
• BC: 1895 Willingdon Ave. in Vancouver – 604-299-7838
• BC: 4000 Whistler Way #202 in Whistler 604-932-3244
• ON: 7706 Kennedy Rd. in Markham – 905-940-8987
• ON: 34 Church St. in Toronto – 416-368-1997
• ON: 232 Danforth Ave. in Toronto – 416-469-2000
• ON: 259 King St. E in Toronto – 416-368-7782
• ON: 727 Queen St. E in Toronto – 647-435-8673
• ON: 1506 Yonge St. in Toronto – 416-967-7770
• ON: 136 Yorkville Ave. in Toronto – 416-934-0007

Visit WeLoveSubway.com and call Subway at 203-877-4281 to add your voice to the thousands of others who are urging the company to add hearty vegan options to all of its menus. 

For more information about vegan and vegetarian options at fast food and quick service chains, see our Fast Food Information page.

The following survey request is from a graduate student at Governors State University in University Park, Illinois. She is obtaining her Master’s degree in Theoretical Psychology. She is researching eating habits and aspects of spirituality for her thesis and is looking for a diverse group of participants including vegetarians and vegans.

You can click on the following link to access the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/gradspiritualitysurvey

Thank you!

These vegan restaurants were recently added to our online restaurant guide. To find restaurants in your area, visit: http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php.

The Cosmic Coconut

5101 Sanderlin Ave., Ste. 104B, Memphis, TN 38117

(901) 729-7134

Vegan/organic/juice bar/café. The Cosmic Coconut is best known for its smoothies and juices with such cheery names as ‘Peace, Love & Pears’ and ‘Good Vibrations.’ They also serve vegan snacks such as Acai Bowl, Steel-Cut Oats, and Coco-Nutties. Free Wi-Fi is available. The Cosmic Coconut is located in the Sanderlin Centre near Bikram Yoga and Muddy’s Bakeshop. Open Tuesday through Saturday for breakfast and lunch. Closed Sunday and Monday. Limited service, take-out, fresh juices, smoothies, espresso/cappuccino, soymilk, special beverages, VISA/MC, $.

Vedge Restaurant

1221 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA 19107

(215) 320-7500

Vegan/American. Vedge Restaurant offers an elegant dining experience of globally-inspired vegan cuisine. They use locally-sourced ingredients and their menu changes to reflect the seasons. Vedge is from the same husband and wife team of the popular Horizons. Reservations are accepted. Open Monday through Saturday for dinner. Closed Sunday. Full service, take-out, wine/beer/alcohol, VISA/MC/AMEX/DISC, $$$.

VSPOT Café

1908 N. Henderson Ave., Dallas, TX 75206

(214) 821-5555

Vegan/café/juice bar. The VSPOT Café offers a flavorful and fresh all-vegan menu. They utilize locally-sourced ingredients as often as possible. The café also features a juice bar. Open Monday through Saturday for lunch and dinner. Open Sunday for lunch. Full service, take-out, catering, VISA/MC/AMEX/DISC, $$.

Please help us keep our restaurant guide current and accurate. Restaurants continually change locations, new ones open, and others close. To let us know about any restaurants we should add, delete, or if our existing entry should be changed, please complete our restaurant update form.

If you would like to volunteer with maintaining and updating The Vegetarian Resource Group restaurant guide, email us at [email protected]. Thank you!

Bo Muller-Moore, an artist in Montpelier, Vermont, has a small business selling T-shirts encouraging people to “Eat More Kale”. This is a sentiment that The VRG can heartily endorse. Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same way. You can read about the controversy at the Huffington Post.

With numerous groups pushing Meatless Mondays, Tofurky Tuesdays, or other campaigns to cut back on meat one meal or day per week, The Vegetarian Resource Group wondered how often Americans are eating vegetarian meals. In order to find an estimate, VRG commissioned Harris Interactive® to conduct a national telephone poll.

Seventeen percent of Americans stated that they “don’t eat meat, fish, seafood, or poultry at many of my meals (but less than half the time)” and 16% don’t eat these foods at more than half of their meals (but not all the time). Thus, 1/3 (33%) of the country are eating vegetarian meals a significant amount of the time (in addition to vegetarians)! This is certainly good news for companies producing vegetarian foods. No wonder why so many restaurants have added vegetarian options.

In a 2008 Vegetarian Resource Group national telephone survey, 40% said when eating out they often order a dish without meat, fish or fowl. For those of you trying to get a handle on the population very interested in vegetarian foods, though not vegetarian, it appears to be 30% – 40% of the country.

HOW MANY VEGETARIANS ARE THERE?
In this survey, approximately 5% of the country say that they never eat meat, fish, seafood, or poultry. About half of these vegetarians are also vegan; that is they also don’t eat dairy or eggs. Note that we had respondents select that “I never eat meat, fish, seafood, or poultry” or “I never eat meat, fish, seafood, poultry, dairy, or eggs.” Because we use the word “never” and give the definition rather than having respondents self define, our numbers may be lower than other polls. We also did not ask about honey.

METHODOLOGY
This survey was conducted by Harris Interactive by telephone within the United States on behalf of the Vegetarian Resource Group between March 30 and April 3, 2011 among a nationwide cross section of 1,010 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race, education, region, number of adults in household, and number of telephone lines were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

In theory, with probability samples of this size, one could say with 95 percent certainty that the results for the overall sample have a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. There are several other possible sources of error in all polls or surveys that are probably more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. They include refusals to be interviewed (e.g., non-response), question wording and question order, and weighting. It is impossible to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

Maybe this is an issue where we can get Democrats and Republicans to agree and work together (over dinner). Six percent each of Republicans and Democrats also didn’t eat meat, fish, seafood, or poultry, at one meal per week.

Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or fowl. Vegans are vegetarians who also don’t use other animal products such as dairy or eggs. The Vegetarian Resource Group is a non-profit which educates the public about vegetarian and vegan diets. It publishes Vegetarian Journal and the book Vegans Know How to Party, offers two $5,000 college scholarships to high school seniors who have promoted vegetarianism, maintains a national restaurant guide at http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php, and sponsors an e-mail list for parents of vegetarians http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vrgparents/. For more information, call (410) 366-8343; e-mail [email protected] write to VRG, P.O. Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203; or visit http://www.vrg.org.

For more poll information, see http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/faq.htm#poll/a>.

by Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

VRG Research Director

In September 2011 we received an email from a long-time VRG member asking us to look into two ingredients she believed were mislabeled in skin care products she had seen at a store located close to Philadelphia. She told us that “silk amino acids” were listed as ingredients in products labeled “vegan.”

The VRG contacted James Youn of Worldway, a Korean company which produces silk amino acids for both food and cosmetic purposes. He told us that “we use only empty cocoons” in the production of silk amino acids. Silk amino acids may be found in some food supplements sold in the United States but, to the best of our knowledge, is not in any food products.

Interested readers may note that some Internet sources stated that silk worms were killed in the extraction process to obtain silk amino acids.

The contents of this article, our website, and our other publications, including The Vegetarian Journal, are not intended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained from a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient information from company employees or company statements. Information does change and mistakes are always possible. Please use your own best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. Further research or confirmation may be warranted.

For more information on food processing methods and food ingredients and to purchase our Guide to Food Ingredients, please visit our website at http://www.vrg.org/ingredients/index.php

For updates on ingredients and other information of interest to vegetarians and vegans, please subscribe to our free enewsletter at http://www.vrg.org/vrgnews/

There are many ways to stay connected to The Vegetarian Resource Group! Get our blog delivered right to your inbox:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheVRGBlog Visit us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/VegResourceGrp and friend us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/thevegetarianresourcegroup

You can support The Vegetarian Resource Group research at
https://www.givedirect.org/give/givefrm.asp?CID=1565

by Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

VRG Research Director

In September 2011 we received an email from a long-time VRG member asking us to look into two ingredients she believed were mislabeled in skin care products she had seen at a store located close to Philadelphia. She told us that “marine collagen” was listed as an ingredient in products labeled “vegan.”

We contacted the owner of the store She stated that her source of marine collagen is “fish scales” and her source of silk amino acids is “the cocoon woven by the silk worm.”

When asked about the labeling, she said that she wasn’t aware of any discrepancy and rechecked them. She concluded that “vegan” was incorrectly placed on the website ingredient list and would be changed to “vegetarian.”

Collagen in Food Products

When working on this report, The VRG noted other places on the Internet where “marine collagen” is described as derived from fish scales and fish skin. It appears that fish are killed in order to extract the collagen.

However, The VRG noticed that one company uses “marine collagen” that it claims had been sourced from algae. Readers concerned about ingredient sources may wish to conduct a company inquiry before purchasing a product containing marine collagen.

As of this writing, it does not appear that marine collagen is used in any food products sold in The United States. Interested readers may wish to note that in October 2009 Nestlé® Malaysia introduced collagen-containing Nescafé® instant coffee as part of its Body Partner® line. According to cosmeticsdesign-europe.com, Singapore is the only country where this product may be found. The collagen in Nescafé’s® Body Partner® range is thought to enhance a youthful body image. Nestlé® Malaysia has not yet responded to the VRG’s request for more information about the source of its collagen.

Other websites and news sources reported in 2009 that collagen is added to some food products in Japan as a functional food ingredient. It may be added to noodles, jams, soups, burgers, or ice cream as an anti-aging compound. Known as a “beauty ingredient” in Japan, collagen chunks may be added to soups or “hot pots” (i.e., medleys of vegetables and meat or fish). Increasingly popular in Japan are dishes which are naturally rich in collagen such as pig’s feet, shark fin or chicken skin.

The contents of this article, our website, and our other publications, including The Vegetarian Journal, are not intended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained from a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient information from company employees or company statements. Information does change and mistakes are always possible. Please use your own best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. Further research or confirmation may be warranted.

For more information on food processing methods and food ingredients and to purchase our Guide to Food Ingredients, please visit our website at http://www.vrg.org/ingredients/index.php
For updates on ingredients and other information of interest to vegetarians and vegans, please subscribe to our free enewsletter at http://www.vrg.org/vrgnews/

There are many ways to stay connected to The Vegetarian Resource Group!
Get our blog delivered right to your inbox:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheVRGBlog
Visit us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/VegResourceGrp
and friend us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/thevegetarianresourcegroup

You can support The Vegetarian Resource Group research at
https://www.givedirect.org/give/givefrm.asp?CID=1565

One of the best restaurants around is the Eden vegan café in Scranton, Pennsylvania. This eatery is a pleasant surprise in a historically non-vegetarian area. Eden features regional veganized specialties like Kielbasa and Peppers, Buffalo (chicken) Drumsticks in Hot Sauce, Meatball Subs, and “Old Forge” (Sicilian style) pizza, plus a nice variety of vegan desserts. Though surrounded by old buildings in a historic downtown, Eden has a new and fresh look. We’ve been there three times, and the counter service wait staff has always been super friendly and efficient. Diners varied from families with kids to college students to business people to seniors. In addition, the restaurant was always easily clean enough to take your non-vegetarian parents. Even the bathroom was bright and sanitary feeling. For information on Eden and other restaurants, see http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/Pennsylvania.php

A graduate of the Foreign Languages faculty at Belarusian State University in Minsk contacted The Vegetarian Resource Group in regards to translating the “Guide to Grains” article from the Sept/Oct 1999 issue of Vegetarian Journal. We were happy to grant her permission, asking that she include proper citations to the original article with her translation.

Click here to read the Belarusian translation.

Adapting articles and recipes to be legible for non-English speakers is a wonderful way to globalize the work of The VRG. If you are fluent in a language other than English and have interest in using your skill to widen the accessibility of vegetarian and vegan information we would be glad to hear from you. Email [email protected] for more information.