About two months ago a Starbucks barista read the ingredients on a bag of a Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino mix, snapped a photo of the bag, and forwarded her discovery to a website that specializes in vegetarian and animal-rights issues. One ingredient, cochineal extract, wasn't something that should be found in a soy drink designed for vegetarians and vegans. Cochineal is a red dye extracted from crushed insects.
All hell broke loose. Starbucks immediately announced it would find another source for red dye, one more acceptable to the vegan community. Vegans recommended using plant dyes extracted from red beets, black carrots, purple sweet potatoes, or paprika. Some wondered why the strawberries weren’t pink enough to tint the drink.
Many vegans and vegetarians, swept up in a paroxysm of outrage, have failed to consider the unintended consequences of forcing Starbucks to pick another food coloring.
We weren’t always so fastidious
Humans have eaten insects since the dawn of mankind. In recent centuries, entomophagy has fallen out of favor in the Western world. People’s expectations and government oversight have reduced insect parts in our food, but it’s only been in the past century that Western culture could afford to be so picky.
We weren’t always so fastidious. In "The Fortune of War", one of a series of historically accurate novels on the naval wars of the Napoleonic era, Captain Aubrey posed a question to his good friend, the ship’s surgeon. Pointing to a couple of weevils crossing the table, abandoning one of the Royal Navy’s notoriously bug-infested ship’s biscuits, he asked the doctor which weevil he would choose, apropos of nothing. The doctor noted they were the same species, but if pressed he would pick the heftier one. Aubrey laughed and said, “Don’t you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils?”
This universal rule of thumb is eschewed by vegans, who refuse to eat anything of animal origin. No meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey. Not even bugs. On that last item, vegan and mainstream dietary preferences overlap. Unfortunately, the contemporary Western taboo against insect consumption can pose a serious dilemma when it comes to making an environmentally responsible decision.
These people are serious
But let’s duck back to the 19th century for a minute. Like Starbucks’ frappuccino faux pas, India’s First War of Independence was a backlash triggered, in part, by underestimating the public’s unwillingness to eat taboo animal products. In the mid-19th century, Great Britain reinforced its 50,000 troops in colonial India with about 200,000 sepoys, native soldiers of both Hindu and Muslim faiths. A new infantry rifle, a muzzleloader, was adopted by the army. Its cartridges consisted of a lead ball and gunpowder inside a paper tube. The paper was coated with tallow or lard for water-resistance and to facilitate ramming the ball down the barrel. To load, a soldier would bite off the end of the paper cartridge, pour the gunpowder down the barrel, then use the ramrod to push the ball and paper wad onto the powder.
But the lubricant was a problem. If it were beef tallow, putting it into the mouth or even touching the cartridge would humiliate and offend the Hindu sepoys. If pork lard, the Muslim sepoys would be offended. Soon many of the sepoys of both faiths were not only unwilling to load their weapons, they were in revolt. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians died in the subsequent turmoil.
If you aren’t a vegetarian or vegan, you might have missed the point I'm trying to make -- these people are serious.
by Rick Sinnott, Alaska Dispatch | Read more:
Illustration: Stephen Nowers
All hell broke loose. Starbucks immediately announced it would find another source for red dye, one more acceptable to the vegan community. Vegans recommended using plant dyes extracted from red beets, black carrots, purple sweet potatoes, or paprika. Some wondered why the strawberries weren’t pink enough to tint the drink. Many vegans and vegetarians, swept up in a paroxysm of outrage, have failed to consider the unintended consequences of forcing Starbucks to pick another food coloring.
We weren’t always so fastidious
Humans have eaten insects since the dawn of mankind. In recent centuries, entomophagy has fallen out of favor in the Western world. People’s expectations and government oversight have reduced insect parts in our food, but it’s only been in the past century that Western culture could afford to be so picky.
We weren’t always so fastidious. In "The Fortune of War", one of a series of historically accurate novels on the naval wars of the Napoleonic era, Captain Aubrey posed a question to his good friend, the ship’s surgeon. Pointing to a couple of weevils crossing the table, abandoning one of the Royal Navy’s notoriously bug-infested ship’s biscuits, he asked the doctor which weevil he would choose, apropos of nothing. The doctor noted they were the same species, but if pressed he would pick the heftier one. Aubrey laughed and said, “Don’t you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils?”
This universal rule of thumb is eschewed by vegans, who refuse to eat anything of animal origin. No meat, milk, cheese, eggs, honey. Not even bugs. On that last item, vegan and mainstream dietary preferences overlap. Unfortunately, the contemporary Western taboo against insect consumption can pose a serious dilemma when it comes to making an environmentally responsible decision.
These people are serious
But let’s duck back to the 19th century for a minute. Like Starbucks’ frappuccino faux pas, India’s First War of Independence was a backlash triggered, in part, by underestimating the public’s unwillingness to eat taboo animal products. In the mid-19th century, Great Britain reinforced its 50,000 troops in colonial India with about 200,000 sepoys, native soldiers of both Hindu and Muslim faiths. A new infantry rifle, a muzzleloader, was adopted by the army. Its cartridges consisted of a lead ball and gunpowder inside a paper tube. The paper was coated with tallow or lard for water-resistance and to facilitate ramming the ball down the barrel. To load, a soldier would bite off the end of the paper cartridge, pour the gunpowder down the barrel, then use the ramrod to push the ball and paper wad onto the powder.
But the lubricant was a problem. If it were beef tallow, putting it into the mouth or even touching the cartridge would humiliate and offend the Hindu sepoys. If pork lard, the Muslim sepoys would be offended. Soon many of the sepoys of both faiths were not only unwilling to load their weapons, they were in revolt. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians died in the subsequent turmoil.
If you aren’t a vegetarian or vegan, you might have missed the point I'm trying to make -- these people are serious.
by Rick Sinnott, Alaska Dispatch | Read more:
Illustration: Stephen Nowers
