Tag archives: diet

Please Mars, just tell me!

“You can’t eat them.”

“What?”

“You can’t eat them.”

“Why the fuck not, they’re only M&M’s.”

“They’re not suitable for vegetarians.”

“Oh yeah, peanut M&M’s, chocolate, peanuts, horse lips, says it right there on the ingredients list.”

The conversation didn’t quite go like that but as it turns out peanut M&M’s aren’t suitable for vegetarians, possibly to do with animal rennet used in the production of the whey…

So I thought, what else can’t I eat, sometimes it’s confusing and annoying having to read through all of the ingredients and make a choice. What if there’s nothing obvious in the ingredients that would point to it not being suitable for vegetarians? So I’ve found myself more and more just avoiding anything that doesn’t say it’s suitable.

I had a look on the Mars Nutrition website, it helpfully lists nutritional information and the ingredients of products, but nothing about suitability for vegetarians.

“Contact Us“, yes please! So I did.

Hi, do you have an up to date list of your confectionery products that are NOT suitable for vegetarians?

It would be very helpful if you also labelled your products that weren’t suitable for vegetarians.

Cheers

Rich

A week or so went by and then today I got a reply from the very helpful Paula Ricketts who works on the Consumer Care Team at Mars…

Dear Richard

Thank you for contacting us about a list of products that are not suitable for vegetarians.

Unfortunately, we’re not currently able to confirm the suitability of individual products or provide you with a list.

Once again, thank you for contacting Mars.

Yours sincerely

Paula Ricketts
Consumer Care Team
0845 045 0042

So, I’m sat open mouthed, do they not know, is it a closely guarded secret? Tap, tap, tap I composed my reply…

Thank you Paula, for your in depth and expedient reply.

I am however a little confused with your reply, do you not know which products are suitable for vegetarians or do you just not want to tell me?

I look forward to your reply!

Kind regards,
Rich

So, only time will tell if Mars will admit to not knowing, not wanting to tell me or just not being bothered!

Incidentally, Cadbury have a very helpful website which lists everything you need to know about their products, if they’re vegetarian, vegan, kosher, etc. Have a look!

http://nutrition.cadbury.co.uk

UPDATE – 2/11/11

I got another reply from Mars…

At Mars, we’re always trying to provide our consumers with the biggest choice possible of chocolate products. We’re making great progress in making sure our products are suitable for vegetarians where possible.

Unfortunately, we’re not currently able to confirm the suitability of individual products or provide you with a list, but most of products are suitable and have ‘Suitable for vegetarians’ on the back of the pack. This labelling ensures that these products are in line with the FSA’s guidance on vegetarian labelling.

As always, our advice would be to make sure you check the packaging so you can guarantee the suitability for your diet. If the product does NOT say ‘Suitable for vegetarians’, we would suggest that you avoid it.

I can only guess that sometimes they have to make changes to the way they manufacture their products. Sometimes they can do it without using ingredients dirrived from animals, sometimes they can’t and they have to change the label based on this.

It’s a shame that the FSA doesn’t issue very useful guidelines on this, wouldn’t it be easier for everything to just state the suitability either way instead of the consumer having to guess or go without because there just isn’t a simple label. I noticed that on the label for some Divine chocolate I was looking at it didn’t say it was suitable for vegeterians but later when I checked on their website it said it was, but they missed the sale.

No meat, no meal?

I suppose I’m a bit of a pretentious fucker when it comes to food, I’ve always found comfort in food, from reading about it, to preparing it, to eating it. I’ve been lucky enough to try all sorts of different things, I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world and eat in some amazing places, even if sometimes things got lost in translation and “Pork” turned out to be “Dog”, but that’s another story for another blog post…

In the last few years I’ve taken more of an interest in food provenance, trying to buy meat that is locally reared and well looked after or using seasonal ingredients instead of whatever we can import for convenience. I’ve Tweeted about my problem with Marks & Spencer (and I’m sure others) selling potatoes imported from Israel, the last time I checked we could grow potatoes just fine in the UK.

I digress, so, anyway we have a few friends who are vegetarian, we’ve shared food and we’ve been introduced to new things by them. After embarking on my mammoth 1000 mile cycling journey this year and changing what I eat completely we began talking about trying out a vegetarian diet for a month and the idea of “Veggie August” was born.

I’d already cut out a lot of meat from my diet and my wife and I mainly eat chicken when we do have meat, but I adore game and seafood and I head straight to that part of the menu whenever I can. I’ve always felt like I’m full of energy even after riding my 60 miles a week but our vegetarian friends rave about how good they feel just from having moved to a more natural and let’s be honest, ethical way of eating.

So, yesterday was the start of Veggie August, we’re foregoing meat for a month and seeing how we feel. I generally do the cooking at home and for a while have done a mix of meat and veggie food anyway so moving over to vegetarian shouldn’t be too much trouble. I’ve stolen recipes from The Waiting Room, an amazing local vegetarian restaurant and I’ve been pointed in the direction of Becka Eats, a great blog about veggie and vegan food.

So for day 1, we went with Lentil Shepherd’s Pie with Sweet Potato Mash, a recipe from Becka’s blog but changed slightly from vegan to veggie purely for convenience! I’m going to add the recipes for what I cook in August to the blog and share how the month is going…