World Vegan Day

[Sister_Awake]

Hi All

I was wondering if anyone can tell me a brand of vegan miso?

The one at Safeway is Hikari brand but it has some mentions of 'yeast' and 'alcohol' that are too ambiguous for me. It goes on to mention koji alcohol also and I don't know what that means. No 'bonito' in this which I know means fish. Is there any alternative to miso? I am trying to make pretend feta from the NotCheese recipe book or whatever it's called.

Thanks

Fiona

[Georgie]

I think the Spiral Foods brand is vegan. You can get it at many health foods stores and I've also seen it at Maxi foods in Blackburn.

[Sister_Awake]

Thanks Georgie, I checked this out at Habib's on Flinders and I think it was vegan. I can't remember because I couldn't afford to buy it.

[Georgie]

Habib's is extremely marked up. Which side of town do you live on? If you're East, Maxi foods is usually really good value. I've never looked specifically, but have you tried checking the miso in Japanese groceries? I know that there are Japanese stores in Box Hill and near the Prahran market, and I'm sure that there'd be others about too.

[peace]

hey sister_awake, i was just wondering. why is yeast and alcohol not vegan?

[Sister_Awake]

Hi Georgie

Yes, I know Habib's is ridiculously expensive in some cases. I was working off silver coinage the other day though so even a reasonable price would have stymied me! They do have a good range there though, I'll give them that. And they seem quite friendly. They have Tofutti stuff I've never seen before and even though I can't afford the prices, I wish I could have a nice novelty vegan icecream! But I can't cos of the sugar thing. Sigh. Why, why, why?!, Tofutti, why?!

Hi Peace, nice to meet you.

Let me see, I don't drink and never have so I'm just going on memory here. But I know that brewer's yeast is not vegetarian and therefore alcohol isn't. Or it may be vegetarian but not vegan. Also, there is that Mexican (?) alcoholic drink that has a poor dead worm in the bottom of it. I couldn't believe this was an actual thing done on purpose when I first encountered it. How disgusting on so many levels.

Baker's yeast and nutritional yeast (cheese dust) are fine. Well my research has baker's yeast as fine, someone please correct me if I am wrong. Also, I read somewhere about being careful about different kinds of vinegars, the red ones I think. I think some companies may use bone char in the process like sugar but from memory the Skipping Girl one is ok. I mention this because of red and white wine vinegar for cooking, salads, etc.

Please anyone help out or correct me on any of this if you know better.

[peace]

hmm, yeast is a fungi. i think i'm a modified vegan
like, if i owned chickens and knew i was treating them great, then
i wouldnt have an issue eating their eggs

[peace]

ps. that worm beer sounds crazy-weird

[Sister_Awake]

I think the worm drink may be Tequila. But I could be very wrong on this! And yeah I couldn't believe this when I saw it. I think it's supposed to do something for the flavour. I bet people wouldn't drink something if you picked up a worm from the concrete after it had rained and put in their bottle :P

I hope someone else can clarify the brewer's yeast thing cos I can't find anything on a quick search.

I can understand your chicken thing, Peace. I find eggs and the whole idea of them gross but I can certainly understand that some people are happy to use 'happy eggs' from their own hens if they can verify their good treatment. And plus you can share the eggs with people who would usually buy cruelty eggs and therefore reduce demand.

Veganism does not have to be or cannot be an absolute condition for every vegan IMO. There are some things you cannot avoid in some circumstances, or you choose not to avoid them because you have to stay sane. Like traces of labels for example. Or some medications that have no alternative. You do the best you can and even if you're not perfect you are still making a big difference. These are my personal thoughts.

[peace]

i definitely agree :) anyhoo have a fun aus day!

[Flake]

So glad I can contribute knowledge with my first post!

On the topic of the worm in Mexican alcohol, it's quite a sad story. Tequila doesn't use the worm, only certain brands of the similar drink Mezcal include it. Some say that it proves the alcohol is 'pure' (e.g. if it was watered down the worm would disintegrate rather then be preserved) but as far as I can tell most people recognise it as simply a marketing gimmick that does absolutely nothing to the alcohol itself! Sometimes they even use a scorpion!

The 'worm' most often used is actually the larva of a moth found on the plant used to make the Mezcal, so they remove and kill the larva regardless as they are a sign of potential infestation. That doesn't make it any better of course, but it's similar to the protection of any crop we consume by removing and killing insects that would otherwise ruin the crop. Putting it in to the drink afterwards however...

I'm not sure about baker's yeast, see no reason why it would be made using animal products. I primarily use nutritional yeast anyways, which it is very closely related to...mmm...cheeseynuttiness. Yeast is an active little microorganism, if we tried to avoid eating those I think we'd start having serious problems...

I stopped drinking alcohol altogether end of last year partially to avoid having to worry about what is vegan or not!

[Sister_Awake]

Hi Flake, thanks for the info.

And oh yeah, that is so gross.

I am still convinced that brewer's yeast is a problem but still cannot remember why. I happened upon an article the other day about alcohol and I think a lot of the problem is to do with the filtering. It uses bone or milk products or something.

I get your point about yeast, that it is an 'alive' organism. We can feel comfort though that it is not sentient, cannot experience pain and I'm assuming has no central nervous system?

Nice to meet you Flake

[Flake]

Hey Sister_Awake Nice to meet you too!

If you're consuming the brewer's yeast but not as part of the alcohol product then it should be ok for a vegan diet, right? Unless it is a byproduct of the production of alcohol that includes animal products, but as far as I know it's just an ingredient that goes in to brewing. If anything it's a good start to get use out of the yeast for things other then alcohol, to show people there's a market for consuming it without having to brew anything.

What I was meaning by calling it a tiny active little microorganism is that it is part of a group of organisms that include bacteria, fungi and algae, all of which as far as I know aren't counted as 'animals' when it comes to vegan diets. Organisms so small that usually we can't see them without the aid of a microscope, like you said no nervous system, can't feel pain etc, clumps of cells and it's impossible (and impractical) to try to avoid harming microorganisms cause they're so small and numerous.

An aside to this are the microorganisms added to yoghurt, usually the A & B cultures. They even add these to soy yoghurt, but watch out! Some companies use cultures grown on animal products and don't mention this on the labelling, very tricky! Soygurt is one brand that I know uses cultures grown using animal products, sad cause their yoghurt is quite tasty