Friday, October 26, 2007

Mars Uses Animal Products


I recently received an email titled: Mars Uses Animal Substances in Products. I almost deleted the email, thinking that it was the usual unreliable type of news that so many of us receive in our Inboxes daily, especially concerning American products.

Curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to read it. Luckily there was a link to the message, and although the link sent me to a not-so-recent article, it was still reliable (BBC NEWS) and full of facts.

The article dates to the 14th of May 2007, and it describes how Masterfoods (the company behind the ever popular Mars, Snickers, Maltesers, Bounty, Minstrels and many more) has decided to switch a key ingredient, vegetarian whey, to a non-vegetarian one, more specifically called rennet.

Rennet is a substance extracted from the inner stomach lining of young calves. This had vegetarians and animal rights activists everywhere in a dilemma. I, myself, who is not a vegetarian, am slightly apalled. In our constant efforts to promote health and environmental awareness in this day and age, Masterfoods suddenly decides to switch to a new strategy without a decent explanation.

Why did they choose to make the switch? I have no idea. Probably more cost-efficient. But definitely not a health-conscious or animal-friendly decision. Why do we need to poke around into a calve's stomach for a chemical that we can find in vegetarian form (like whey)?

This change was made in May, which means that all the above mentioned chocs have been altered since then. Noticed a change in taste? I haven't. So why change it then??

This doesn't mean that this lady will stop gobbling her Snickers on her next sugar craving binge.

But she'll probably think twice about it.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this. You're absolutely right. Changing from a vegetarian ingredient to rennet is bad for people's health.

Mars also tests on animals, which begs the question, Why? Why on earth does a candy manufacturer need to test on animals?

Here's what they've done:

Mars has funded cruel experiments in which mice were fed a candy ingredient and forced to swim in a pool of paint and water. The mice had to find a platform to try to avoid drowning, only to be killed and dissected later. ... Mars also supported an experiment that involved cramming baby mice into small Plexiglas chambers and then submerging the chambers for nearly five hours in a chilled water bath to determine whether or not a chocolate ingredient affected the mice's breathing rates. In the second phase of this test, experimenters shoved tubes down mice's throats to force-feed them an ingredient in chocolate, deprived them of all other food, and finally killed them and cut them up for analysis.

http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/mars_animal_tests

Tracy

Grey said...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=460993&in_page_id=1774

Sh#t happens !

This Lady said...

Oh, dear. I don't know what to say. Tracyh ur comment is really scary! I had no idea this happens. I'm going to research more about it. I really really wish that what ur saying isnt true. :(

Grey, notice how they contradicted themselves in just two weeks? They made a change, and then when it was publicly denounced, they changed it again. But still no official word on that. If there is, let me know.

Zed said...

first of all, don't believe everything you read

and off course they are going to use animal products, MILK.. MILK IS AN ANIMAL PRODUCT

and ask yourself, does it make any sense???

why would they go to that extent, "the inner lining of a claves stomach"??? COMME ONNNNNN

just use the actual original ingredianxce, cheaper and faster

Anonymous said...

That would stop it for me as i don't eat meat unless it's halal i don't even eat something from Gelatin .. hmm, it doesn't make a big difference i am not in love with those chocs anyways..

This Lady said...

zed: of course we shouldn't beleive everything we read. But this is an actual documented fact. You can check it out everywhere, its not gossip. And sure milk is an animal product, its just not PART of the animal. The issue here is mostly vegetarianism. Most veggies eat dairy products, but not actual animal PARTS. So Masterfoods was announcing that their products were not going to be vegetarian-friendly anymore.

shayouma: I'm not too specific about halal and not halal meat when I'm not in Kuwait. Also, I never thought about it this way. Does it make a difference if the rennet was from halal or not halal meat? Weird huh?

Anonymous said...

\have a kuwaiti made cake ;P
moo min zeen mars 3ad.

Anonymous said...

bas i love maltesers.
yet i can give it up :P
Lindt will do the job hehe

Unknown said...

I say just don't eat chocolate! :p

Яeema said...

do you know from what they do a lipstick?

does it make us dont use it


and this e-mail is right
the link from bbc


+++++

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6653175.stm

Яeema said...

another thing

eat another kind of chocolate
:p

This Lady said...

Of course I can live without them. But I still like them. They're yummy!

Maybe once in a while ;)

Reema definitely right about lipsticks. This i can't give up!!

Joud said...

from now on i'm sticking to kitkat :->

Marzouq said...

That is a bit disturbing, that they would take the lining of calf to make a chocolate snack. I think that is the wrong way to go with it.

I would rather eat just meat or just chocolate. I wouldn't think mixing the two together would be good.

Luckly I don't eat chocolate! lol

Marzouq said...

You can't go wrong with flake!! And some good Vanilla icecream! lol

Anonymous said...

Oh loool I forgot about Maltesers i love it too.. Maybe we can go buy all what's left lol!

This Lady said...

haha the thing is, Masterfoods creates so many of our fave chocs!

Good luck finding substitutes!

This Lady said...

haha the thing is, Masterfoods creates so many of our fave chocs!

Good luck finding substitutes!

Anonymous said...

Oh I thought it will start next may! LoL so it already did since last MAY! OMG lol!