Plant-based or vegan?

Understand the difference between these terms, plus 6 things you wouldn’t believe have animal proteins in them.

Many people assume that plant-based means vegan, but that is incorrect. A plant-based product is anything made from ingredients or supplies that only come from plants, however, that may not carry a vegan certification. We have been asked this question many times, and addressing it feels important. A great example that is quite easy to relate and explain is wine. Why isn’t every wine vegan? Isn’t it all made of grapes and yeast? What many people do not know is that egg whites and casein (milk protein) have been used for a long time in the fining process to separate small particles that could not be removed by other filtration methods.  

For a food manufacturer to be considered vegan, they need to make sure that their ingredients, as well as the sourcing process, packaging and other operational steps don’t have the presence of any animal protein or sub-product as leather or wool, amongst others. Here are some items you may have thought were vegan, but are not:  

Jellies and Jam

Some jellies and candy are made with gelatin, which comes from bone marrow. This is definitely not vegan. Be sure to look for items that are made with agar-agar or pectin for vegan alternatives.   

Sugar

In the refining process, bone char is commonly used to whiten sugar. USDA certified organic sugars are not allowed to use bone char in their processes, which would qualify it as vegan. Different brands may or may not mention this on their packaging.   

Non-dairy creamers  

Many non-dairy creamers use a substance called sodium caseinate. As mentioned before, casein is a protein that comes from cow’s milk.   

Red foods  

Did you know that some red food coloring gets its red hue from an insect? That is right! This little fellow:  

Cochineal Insect - used for red dyes

So, if you see a product that contains carmine, the colouring comes from a bug called cochineal. If you want to know more about it, this BBC article will fill you in.

Miso soup  

Isn’t miso soup that vegetable broth with tofu? Yes, it is, but did you know that some places prepare it with dashi? Yes! Dashi is a broth base that is made from kelp and fish ingredients.   

Beer  

In a comparable way to the wine process mentioned before, some beer manufacturers use isinglass, a gelatin-based substance derived from fish for their filtration process. Fishy huh?   

So, you might be asking yourself, why doesn’t Quesava label their plant-based products as vegan? In an ever changing, fast-paced environment where we may need to adjust recipes and change suppliers at any given moment, having to rely on third-party certifications for our ingredients becomes an incredibly hard job. But we are very committed to our transparency values and in providing the most accurate information we have available to our customers. Since not all our ingredients are certified vegan, like our cassava flour, we feel it would not be right to label our products as vegan. If you would like to know more about the regulations and criteria for such certification, have a look at this V-label webpage.