New Snickers! Now with young calf stomach lining! Yum!

If you’re a vegetarian, or just not a fan of eating the stomach lining of young calves when you snack, then you probably want to know this. Read this news item from the Vegetarian Society web site (I swear there is a society for everything) :

The Vegetarian Society is extremely disappointed to learn that Mars favourites such as Mars, Milky Way, Bounty, Snickers, Galaxy, Twix and Maltesers are now all unsuitable for vegetarians. At a time when more and more consumers are concerned about the provenance of their food, Masterfoods’ decision to use non-vegetarian whey is a backward step. Mars products are very popular with young people and many will be shocked to discover that their manufacture now relies on the extraction of rennet from the stomach lining of young calves.

I don’t know why it is young calves, and it doesn’t really matter. The young part makes it sound creepier though. Anyways, Masterfoods contacted the VS (you’re not really a society until you’re comfortably acronymed),

…A Masterfoods representative has made contact with us and we are very pleased that they now recognise the importance of integrity to all their customers, especially vegetarians. We cannot endorse any planned actions by the company until we receive detailed assurances about the ingredients and processes involved in production but we are delighted that Mars UK has been honest enough to mark the beginning of National Vegetarian Week by admitting that it made a mistake…

That’s the gist of the comment, read it all here if you wish. No plans to change their use of rennet mentioned in their reply. So if you know a vegetarian, you may want to pass this info along.

- shawn

[source: vegetarian society]