Ape::Tracks

Too rotten to drink?

My local healthfood grocers Eighth Day are no longer selling Innocent smoothies as a result of Coca Cola buying a large share in the company. The sellout to Coca Cola and resulting boycott are a big disappointment to me, as I was an almost daily consumer of Innocent drinks until today.

Innocent's generally ethical stance is a stark contrast to Coca Cola's: doing business with a company that sells rubbish like Coke is one thing, but when a company is involved in the murders of rivals and trade unionists... that's not pragmatism, that's complicity.

The decline in the quality of Green and Blacks chocolate following their 'merger' with Cadburys shows what else can go wrong. The post-Cadburys Green and Blacks 'vegan' chocolate ended up with enough milk in it to make people will dairy allergies ill, so they've now abandoned claiming it's vegan. I've read unsubstantiated claims that this is due to machines no longer being cleaned out between production runs of different products in order to boost profits.

The silver lining (chocolate wrapper?) of the Green and Blacks sellout was that Montezuma's far superior chocolate filled the niche. I'm hopeful that something similar will happen with the niche Innocent have abandoned.

Update: Green and Blacks have sent me an email saying that although their dark chocolate's packaging lost the 'vegan' label and gained milk on the ingredients, the actual recipe didn't change following Cadburys ownership - what changed was a more cautious policy regarding traces of milk from previous production runs. They plan to produce proper vegan choc in the future. I've asked if I can reproduce their email here as a comment.

(I do sometimes eat choc that's labelled vegan and has warnings of possible trace amounts of milk, because 'traces' implies incredibly small amounts - I think the appearance of milk on the ingredients list gives the impression of much larger amounts. Restaurant plates may have traces, but I wouldn't eat a meal containing it as an ingredient.)

Here's the email (comments are locked now...)

Dear Pete,
Your blog at http://apetracks.binary-ape.org/2009/04/fruit-thats-too-rotten-to-drink.html has recently been brought to my attention and I hope you don't mind me taking this opportunity to address your comments about Green & Black's recent changes to the dairy allergen and vegan labelling of our dark chocolate products.

I would like to assure you that there has been no change to the recipe of our dark chocolate; the change is simply in the way in which the risks of dairy cross contamination are being communicated on bar wrappers. I will outline the background behind this decision below:

As you may be aware, there are no milk ingredients in the recipe of our Dark chocolate bars and this continues to be the case. However, the bars are produced on the same production line as Milk chocolate bars within our range. The bars have previously, therefore, carried the following statement to reflect this: ‘Manufactured in a factory that handles dairy ingredients.’

A recent audit revealed that traces of milk residues can still be found on manufacturing equipment despite intensive cleaning. Therefore, in order to ensure that consumers are at minimum risk, our allergen statements will be changed and we will clearly state on pack that milk residues may be present in dark chocolate bars across the range. This will be indicated by the inclusion of ‘Organic Whole Milk Powder’ within the ingredients list itself and a ‘Contains Milk Ingredient’ statement on pack. The Vegan labelling was also consequently removed from pack, as you have noted.

Therefore, there is actually no change to the risk to allergy-sufferers as the recipes and ingredients that go into the making of the bars have not changed. What we are now clearly stating on pack is that we cannot guarantee the absence of milk. It is almost certainly going to be present – albeit at a low level. This packaging change ensures that consumers, especially milk allergy sufferers, are aware of the possibility and this represents a positive step in consumer communication.

We are eager to inform consumers of this change to prevent any possible concern that may arise. Therefore, this information is displayed clearly on our website at www.greenandblacks.com and we have been working with organisations such as Allergy UK, the Anaphylaxis Campaign and the Vegan Society to ensure that this may be clearly communicated to allergy sufferers and vegans alike.

Separate dedicated lines for our dark and milk chocolate bars would be the only way to eliminate the risks of dairy cross contamination in the dark chocolate. At present, the restrictions for organic segregation and the design of plant we need for our type of chocolate restricts the availability of equipment. We are very certain however that we must work towards alternative equipment and we are planning to provide a dedicated production line by the end of 2009. Our hope is that we can make product available early in 2010.

I hope that this information, along with the attached FAQ’s and image of the new labelling, is of some help to you to further clarify our position.

<<Milk allergy FAQs.doc>> <<Image of new labelling Dark 85%.doc>>
However, if you have any further queries or comments at all, please do not hesitate to contact me again. Green & Black's also intend to update any consumers concerned about this issue to inform them of our updated position when the separate lines are up and running- if you would like to be contacted at this time, please do let me know and I will gladly add you to the list.

Kind Regards

Laura Bowyer
Customer Care Manager
Green & Black's

Dragon's Blood

I was surprised to learn that the world's hottest peppers are grown in the south of England, and that hot sauce is now a local delicacy on the south coast. While I was in Lyndhurst I bought a couple of locally produced sauces.

'Raging Ape' (I couldn't resist) is a spicer version of 'Cheeky Monkey' (also tempting) but is not particularly hot - it's a spicy banana chutney rather than a chili sauce. Nice on a cheese sandwich.

'Dragon's Blood', on the other hand, has been a rather moving experience (tears were involved) and very enjoyable. I suspect it's also mostly banana, but the Naga pepper in it makes things very interesting without it becoming a joke sauce - it's remarkably hot but also has a nice flavour, and the heat isn't harsh or unpleasant. Definitely recommended, but be cautious. Naga peppers are apparently used as anti-elephant tear gas.

So, what do vegans eat then?

This week was a bit awkward and rather too long but on the other hand it included rather a lot of very good food. During one meal I wondered if there were already any Flickr groups for photos of vegan food, as they'd be a good way to show off particular dishes, or restaurants, and would help answer the frequent "so what do you eat then?" questions.

I'm tempted to start a Manchester vegan photo group but there are (of course) already many vegan photo groups on Flickr, such as:

• Vegan Foods - bought or homemade
• Vegan Bento
• Vegan Restaurant Guide
• Vegan Lunchbox
• Vegan Pancakes and Waffles

Most Mars confectionary is not vegetarian

While the general trend is for more products to become veggie friendly, even vegan, Mars have changed their recipes to include rennet, stomach juice from animals. From 1 May 2007 many of their most common pseudo-chocolates are no longer veggie.

To their credit Mars did contact The Vegetarian Society to warn them, so at least they are being fair and honest about this.

Link: ScouseVeg » Mars confectionary no longer vegetarian

(Footrant: I stopped eating any confectionary that wasn't organic or fair trade over ten years ago. Mass-market chocolate production involves slavery, pollution and violence. Vegetarians should avoid Big Chocolate products because they're made by child slaves, not just because they're made with rennet. Most Mars, Cadbury and Nestle 'chocolate' products are utter junk anyway.)

The Land Of Chocolate!

Manchester Vegetarian and Vegan Group held a chocolate tasting event and asked me to take a few photos.

In the end I took 105 pictures, with about 64 usable ones - I'm a point-and-clicker rather than a Serious Photographer With A Serious Camera.

The chocolate was great, ranging from expensive fancy, handmade stuff to vegan white chocolate and Jaffa Cake clones. All the chocolate had been generously donated by a long list of companies. There was a huge pile of rather good vegan fudge, raw chocolate tea, cakes and marzipan bars. The chocolate fountain decided to behave more like one of those volcanic mud pools in New Zealand, bubbling away rather than flowing, but it worked well enough.

If you're a veggie in Manchester then I would recommend joining MVVG's mailing list - they're a nice group, the list often has interesting and useful info and you'll get the opportunity to experience all-you-can-eat vegan chocolate events :-)

(I'm still humming the music from Homer's chocolate daydream)

Link: MVVG Chocolate Tasting

Death By Chocolate

I showed my utter, shocking ignorance of British history and classical music yesterday by saying "Henry Purcell? Who's he then?" - I heard gasps.

    Apparently, from my frantic search of Wikepedia, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Purcell">Mr Purcell</a>

    <blockquote>
    a Baroque composer, is generally considered to be one of England's greatest composers—indeed, he has often been called England's finest native composer.
    </blockquote>

    But <strong>far</strong> more interesting (to me at least) is this bit:

    <blockquote>
    The cause of Purcell's death is unclear: one theory is that he caught a chill after returning late from the theatre one night to find that his wife had locked him out; another is that he succumbed to chocolate poisoning; perhaps the most likely is that he died of tuberculosis.
    </blockquote>

    <i>Chocolate poisoning?</i> Chocolate is poisonous to dogs, but not people. Chocolate had only been available in England for slightly longer than Purcell had been alive. Was it was feared as a strange and dangerous habit with terrible consequences, much as hash was in 1950s America (Was there an equivalent to <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/reefer_madness1938">Reefer Madness</a>?) Or was something done to the chocolate, or done while eating or drinking it, that made it dangerous?

    Searching for more information on Purcell's dangerous consumption of chocolate returns dozens of copies of the same Wikipedia text. I did learn (on Nestle's site, I'm ashamed to say) that at one stage almost all the chocolate in England was stolen property, taken from Spanish ships, and that the first time the English encountered raw chocolate they thought it was sheep manure and burned it all.

How to cough or sneeze

I started doing this a while back because I'm weird and it seemed sensible, but I've just found this video ( via the glorious Metafilter) that explains it all :-)

Do it in your sleeves!

Apart from the maths and physics involved, yes, they are the same.

Judith Davies, who has a daughter at the school, said: “Many people campaign against mobile phone masts near schools, but there is a great deal of ignorance about wireless computer networks. Yet they are like having a phone mast in the classroom and the transmitters are placed very close to the children.”

Health fears lead schools to dismantle wireless networks

Scientific evidence is inconclusive, but some researchers think that children are vulnerable because of their thinner skulls and developing nervous systems.

Wifi uses the same signal as baby monitors but unlike baby monitors the signal is not constant. The wifi units are also further away from users than baby monitors are from babies (I believe baby monitors are usually fixed to cots). Babies have very thin skulls. As far as I know the "Exposing Large Numbers Of Babies To 2.4Ghz Microwave Radiation" experiment puts us all in the clear so far.

Given the almighty faff I've been having with wireless networks recently they should go with a wired network because it's going to work.

If there's one thing worse than people who can't discriminate between different forms of radiation it's Netgear wifi bridges that kill TCP connections and Linux wifi drivers that have a mind of their own. :-) Unfortunately A. isn't keen on me taping cable over the walls or pulling up the new flat's floor yet, and she has a point.

Strict

I'm irked by the phrase "strict diet" used to describe people who only eat organic food, or vegetarians. "Strict" makes it sound joyless and limited. If someone refused to eat stale food contaminated with dog poo they wouldn't be described as having a "strict diet", and avoiding bland food contaminated with pesticides is no different. Well, it probably doesn't smell like dog poo, but that's over extending my rather weak metaphor...

Link: 'I don't get food I get at home'

Vegan Food in Anytown, USA

Someone has done a great job researching which American fast food chains have food suitable for vegans. Overall the situation isn't great, but in many cases this isn't really surprising: should a steakhouse be expecting vegans?

If you're looking for the most available chain with decent options (not just salad), it looks like Taco Bell is still the best bet.

Link: Vegan eating in any restaurants