Additives? Not for me, thanks.

Whenever you mention additives to people, they always say cochineal, ground up cochineal insect which produces a red dye, and to be honest it was the first I thought of. Well, I was shocked to see on the Vegetarian Society’s website, that it is the only E number that is always vegetarian.

However, there are nearly 50 other E numbers which can be produced from both vegetarian and non-vegetarian sources, that means any additives you have in your food, may contain some meat derivative.
They have nasty sounding names like ‘E432 Polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monolaurate’ and ‘E472(e) Mono- and di-acetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and di-glycerides of fatty acids.’
With names like that you know they can’t be good, and what is most scary, I bet they are in our kids sweets by the bucket load.
There is also our old friend, Gelatine, also known as E number E441.

As always, there are your everyday foods, which you would assume have never been near a meat product, why would they? The additives used shoot that theory down in flames.
Take bread, for instance, most large producers use vegetable based emulsifiers (E471, E472 etc), but local bakers may not. Some bakers may grease the tins with animal fat, yum.
Breakfast cereals are often fortified with vitamin D3 which is found in oily fish and milk products, it is also derived from lanolin in sheep’s wool, therefore, if you want a guilt free conscience, look out for D3 which is guaranteed sourced from wool sheared from live sheep.
Emulsifiers, they sound horrible anyway and they may not be vegetarian.
Ice Cream may contain non-dairy fats, E numbers and eggs.
Margarines may contain animal fats, fish oils, vitamin D3, E numbers, whey and gelatine.
Some canned orange flavoured soft drinks use gelatine as a carrier for added Beta Caratine. (This would not appear on the ingredients panel).
And finally, look out for gelatine in boiled sweets and mints. Some vegetarian sweets are listed by chocolate manufacturers.

For the full list of E numbers visit the Vegetarian Society website, http://www.vegsoc.org/info/enumbers.html