Is-Vegan – Helps you to find out which food ingredients are vegan

Do you not see the irony in your comment?

Partly I think it's a defense mechanism. Say someone offers you meat, you decline and, to prevent their continued insistence or for future reference, admit to being a vegetarian. You will likely spend the next half hour to an hour of your life listening alternately to stupid jokes ("well so was the food!" har har har) and to that person excusing themselves for eating meat. I think this is because they have interpreted your statement as a sort of judgement or attack. If they're incredibly insecure, the mere mentioning of the existence of vegetarians may set off this behavior.

It's probably similar for cyclists. With global climate change and the general lack of physical activity in modern societies, the mere existence of cyclist is treated like some kind of personal attack. "You're not as conscientious or healthy as I am", as it were.

Though, like preachy vegans, there are also some cyclists who agitate everyone by completely ignoring both courtesy and the law when sharing the road.

> Or do vegans often ponder the "ingredients" in everyday objects?

Yes.

> Is vaccinating your kids vegan? Are all vegans anti-vax?

There is certainly a lunatic anti-vax fringe. But no, not all vegans are like that, even though many vaccines contain animal derived products. I find this interesting: http://rvgn.org/2015/05/09/anti-vax-and-veganism/

> Are soaps, cosmetics, detergents, plastics, tires, and lubricants made with stearic acid and other beef products vegan?

No.

> Vegans for ethical reasons seem to only not want to consume a single part of the animal, but consume the rest, which is a pretty large portion, by weight.

No vegan I ever interacted with fit this description.

> And if you're eating organic food, isn't it more likely that your spinach was grown in a bath of bone meal, blood meal, fish meal?

Possible, but if everyone stopped eating those animals, the prices of these products would presumably make their use uneconomical, so promoting veganism would change this.

Though I admit I haven't heard vegans I know ever discuss this particular point. They are probably not aware of how the plants they eat are fertilized.

I'll speak for myself. It's not about purity. It's about reducing harm. I know I can't be a "pure" vegan without either living in a bubble, or some remote area with really good farming.

Do people know we use every part of the proverbial buffalo?

Yes.

Or do vegans often ponder the "ingredients" in everyday objects?

And yes. I'm aware the paint on the walls might not be vegan. I just have to live with that.

Is vaccinating your kids vegan?

I don't know, and I don't care. I'm okay with using animal products for medicine. Maybe that makes me not vegan.

Are all vegans anti-vax?

No.

Are soaps, cosmetics, detergents, plastics, tires, and lubricants made with stearic acid and other beef products vegan?

Strictly, no.

And if you're eating organic food, isn't it more likely that your spinach was grown in a bath of bone meal, blood meal, fish meal?

Maybe. But I'm sure this is better than actually eating the animals, in a calculated sense. I make no effort to eat organic, anyway.

Do vegans know how we produce organic fertilizers?

Some do, some don't.

Note: I am not vegan, nor I necessarily endorse the thinking behind this answer, but I'm trying to do a service to the discussion by reporting what I heard from a conversation with a vegan friend.

I think the argument here is that most of most animals' worth come from eating them or their products. If everybody were to stop eating animals then it would not be economically feasible any more to use the "waste" parts of the animal for all the other products. We would find other more economically feasible ways to produce the same products (via plant matter or synthetics). Thus, by refusing to eat meat and animal products, all the other uses of animal suffering would cease to exist.

> Or do vegans often ponder the "ingredients" in everyday objects?

I have met many vegans that adhere to various levels of "strictness", (2nd-hand leather goods, isinglass filtered beers, etc. etc.), but even for the very most relaxed, non-adherent vegans, at a very minimum being acutely aware of the non-vegan nature of many/most non-edible products is definitely a consistent theme. This seems like basic 101 of pondering becoming a vegan. Of course they consider the ingredients of soaps, plastics, etc.

> Vegans for ethical reasons seem to only not want to consume a single part of the animal, but consume the rest, which is a pretty large portion, by weight.

Everything is anecdotal, so perhaps vegans you've met do think like this, but in my experience the opposite has been true. Some have been lovely people, some have been a little closer to the negative stereotype of vegans that's propagated on the internet, but they have been at least universally well-versed in the ingredients of their own consumption.

> Do vegans know how we produce organic fertilizers?

Yes.

The definition reads: "Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose."

Veganism is a commitment beyond diet. Every vegan I know does not intentionally make use of anything that contains animal products in any form. There is a huge industry for cruelty free cosmetics, for example. You’re mischaracterising veganism. A person who follows a diet of no animal products but uses animal products elsewhere in their life would usually say they follow a “plant based diet” and not claim to be vegan.

For most, it's less about the hard and fast rule set as much as a constant minimization of our consumption of animal products.

Ethical vegans are interested in doing the least harm, and so they'll investigate ingredients to ensure they're at least minimizing the suffering of animals.

Nearly all vegetarians I know wear leather shoes.....

I've had someone who insisted they wanted to get out of my car because I have leather seats(and I was giving him a lift as a favour). To me, that's 1000% insane, but hey, his choice.

They should just give up and discard their emotions.

Veganism to is "making a serious effort to not harm animals by not consuming product for which animals were harmed to produce them".

There are always edge-cases. I've not met vegans actively addressing that, for instance (1) any vehicle seems to kill some bug at some point and (2) most plant farming needs some kind of animal-pest control.

Edge-cases aside, it is a fact that a vegan lifestyle vastly reduces animal suffering and death, and is is in most cases less taxing on our environment.

> Do vegans know how we produce organic fertilizers?

Yes there are plenty discussions on that topic and related topic in the vegan movement.

Is veganism "eliminating the consumption of any animal products" or "reducing consumption of products that are produced due to animal exploitation and suffering". In the former case, honey is clearly not allowed, but in the latter it could be. Beekeepers and their bees can definitely be more of a symbiotic relationship than an exploitative one.

I see both sides of the debate; at the very least it's not as black-and-white as most other animal products.

> Considering honey to be vegan sounds a bit fringe, to be honest.

Maybe on a "percentage of vegans" level, but on a logical level, why? Humans provide housing, (supplemental) food, protection, medical attention to bees in exchange for some of their honey production.

The bees don't really get to consciously choose, sure, but you could make an argument that the Whole Foods employees selling you tofu don't get much choice in whether or not to work, either.

I believe the saying goes "eat food, not too much, mostly plants".

Having been in a relationship with a wonderful German woman for a while now, I've found out that Germany has a very solid history of vegetarian cooking. Not necessarily for ethical reasons, but because of the periods in history where meat was too expensive or simply unavailable for most people. So they had to come up with a bunch of great (primarily) vegetarian dishes.

You'll probably never get me to give up my lemon chicken or shawarma completely, but you would have just as much trouble getting me to give up my portobellos or brussel sprouts.

Plant-based is another word for "not vegan enough", and when one suggests someone should use the word plant-based they're telling that person they're "too far from the ideal vegan definition to call themselves vegan". It is very defeatist approach, and IMO harmful.

We should embrace the fact that in our societies, perfect veganism is a very extreme idealistic endpoint. Its the travel towards it which is already good. Heck, everyone who's not even vegetarian but reducetarian is doing a lot of good for both our environment as well as animal welfare.

This points to a larger societal problem of lackluster labeling requirements - people should at least have the knowledge so they can make informed decisions.

It’s is it vegan, not is it allergen okay. I think blacklist is a good tool for that job.

I think haggis might be covered by the existing blacklist, as it's usually made with lamb offal, and would usually appear as a sub-list on an ingredients list.

For example, here's a haggis pizza:

Pizza Topping (59%): Haggis (21%) [Lamb Lungs (33%), Seasoning (Oatmeal, Dried Onions, Barley Flakes, Salt, Spices (Pepper, Pimento), Water, Beef Fat (13%): Beef Liver (10%, Beef Heart (5%)], Mozzarella Cheese (Milk) (21%), Tomato Sauce (17%) [Concentrated Crushed Tomatoes, Additive: Citric Acid, Water, Rapeseed Oil, Salt, Oregano, Garlic], Pizza Base: (41%): Wheat Flour. Additives: Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamine, Water, Yeast, Salt, Rapeseed Oil, Maize Flour

(and yes, haggis pizza is a thing...! I wouldn't recommend it though, to be honest, even if you do love haggis.)

Restrictive? It has to be, by definition.

Bland? Only if you define your meals primarily by the meat they contain, which is still very ingrained in the western approach to food.

So a lot of people think of vegetarian food as "leaving something out" or "taking something away", and imagine a steak dinner where you've simply removed the steak. That is obviously a bad approach.

Focus on what you can make instead.

Disclaimer: I like cooking and eating all kinds of tasty food, and I don't mind at all if it's vegetarian or vegan.

As a vegan myself, I find it laughable that someone could somehow elude the notion that the vegan "lifestyle" is "restrictive and bland" until they fortuitously discover this GitHub repo, or a tool that uses it. People are aware. They seldom miss a chance to let me know.

It’s funny because all spices are plants. So if you, for some reason, wanted to cut out all plant matter you’d be the one with a bland tasteless world.

What are you so hostile against a simple shower thought?

My personal opinion would be that if anything is vegan (the "plants nourish on dead animals" position is an argument for another day), then a carnivorous plant itself is unquestionably vegan.

If you avoid meat because you do not want the nutrients or is allergic, it is a diet. If you avoid meat because you find it wrong, it is a philosophy or religion.

If the question is about belief, I would not consider "vegan" a diet in any possible meaning of the word.

(The above does not state that I find veganism to be wrong—rather, it merely classifies the ideology.)

I think if you tell quite a lot of non-vegans about that it'll put them off figs, too :)

> I talked to a vegan while ago about whether he would eat figs. Wasps dig into certain types of figs to lay their eggs

I believe all figs work that way, with co-evolved fig wasps pollinating it. The pollinating female is actually the smallest part of the animal protein digested by the fig: only the female wasps and a subset of the parasites (which managed to infect female wasps before their exit) make it out, male wasps and the rest of the parasites die inside and get digested as well.

Aha, you are correct. I got caught by the use of the term "vegan" as a label for food suitable for vegans (to which I normally react as if the label had read "contains concentrated plutonium").

To dig into your question, one first has to answer what the definition of vegan is in the context. Is it just a diet, or is it a belief? While a pet wolf fed only vegan food would probably die from malnutrition, it is fair to assume that a cow left to its own devices would eat food that, while indigestible to human vegans, would be vegan in nature.

But, does that make the cow "vegan", as the cause of this choice is merely a biological one? I do not think it would hesitate to enjoy honey if presented, nor worry if meat was its primary food source.

I don't think I've ever met a vegan who takes such a fundamentalist view. Generally the question is more: "does this product contribute to animal suffering or environmental degradation via unnecessary resorce use of animal husbandry?"

If figs aren't acceptable because wasps get digested by the plant, then surely no food is vegan, as insects are certainly involved in pollination and probably form some small percentage of almost any food product available.

This presents an interesting question about what renders food non-vegan.

The system between wasps and figs is mutual. The fig doesn't trap wasps against their will—the wasp enters voluntarily because they have evolved to lay eggs in figs, as the fig provides a brilliant environment for the eggs to safely grow. I do not know of any mechanism where the fig benefits from the death of the wasp—that the opening is so narrow that the wasps wings detach is, from what I can gather, in order to protect the wasp's offspring, which is to the benefit of the wasp, not the fig. It is therefore not really a killer plant. The wasp is the one that keeps squeezing as its wings are torn off.

If fig is not vegan because an insect voluntarily died in the process of its pollination, then I simply no longer understand the concept of veganism. Not eating fig is not about avoiding animals or animal products, nor about not contributing to their production (If you consider the fig an animal product due to this process, note that most plants absorb nutrients from dead animals through the soil).

I hate figs personally, though, so I'm not trying to contribute to their consumption. And wasps.

Except the dead wasp (and male wasps and parasites which die in the fig) are digested by the fig to mature it. Then what? If that makes food non-vegan, I don't think you're going to find much vegan food, pretty much every plant will at one point have absorbed nutrients from dead animals.

But does not eating figs, mean that that would stop the wasp from fertilizing it?

There is no hard-and-fast rule to determine if something is vegan or not. You could just as easily argue that figs are vegan because the figs do not suffer.

The HN post says uses the word blacklist, but the library itself works like this:

    isVegan.isVeganIngredient('ham'); // true

Indeed, and carrot juice is murder.

oh sweet

So like chicken, it is merely a higher-order vegetable?

If the person who eats only plants is called “vegan”, then it stands to reason that a sheep that eats only plants could also be called “vegan”.

It sure is (I only eat vegetarians).

> disclosure: Both my gf and I have shirts saying EATING PEOPLE IS WRONG, featuring the Goya painting of Cronus eating one of his sons.

Hmm, what if the human being died from roadkill? Runs

Unless you grow your own vegetables and produce your own fertilizer you are eating plants that grow on bone and blood.

This holds true especially if you are buying organic produce which does not use non-organic fertilizers.

Even if you accept that your food comes from animal byproducts, being vegan will drastically reduce your "animal footprint". Turning blood/bone/manure into wheat is much more efficient than turning blood/bone/manure into wheat into a cow.

(I'm not a vegan, I just don't find this "you can't really be a vegan" loophole compelling)