Gelatin, vegetarian or vegan?

Question

i'm vegetarian and i don't eat foods like rice krispie treats, skittles, starbursts, yogurts and other things like that because they contain gelatin. Gelatin is an animal product but i have vegetarian friends that eat foods with gelatin in it. Would you consider not eating foods with gelatin in it a vegetarian or vegan move?

Answer 1

Wow - it is alarming how inaccurate some of these answers are!

Vegetarians do not eat any part of an animal. Gelatin, unless it specifically says otherwise, is made from boiled animal parts. Therefore, it is not vegetarian. Period!

Your friends are breaking a vegetarian taboo by eating anything with gelatin. It would be the same kind of "offense" as eating something with beef broth or lard. It's not MEAT, but it's still animal.

Vegans also wouldn't eat gelatin, but if your friends are trying to tell you only vegans go "so far" as to not eat gelatin, they are wrong.

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Vegan Gelatin

Answer 3

Vegetarians won't eat gelatin, unless they a) don't know what it is or b) don't realize that there's gelatin in something. Technically, no kind of vegetarian will eat gelatin, since it is usually made of mammal and there aren't any varieties of semi-vegetarian that include mammal. The closest you'll get is "flexitarian" which designates someone who generally follows a vegetarian or vegan diet but makes exceptions. Note: most strict vegetarians and vegans (especially those who choose the diet for ethical reasons) reject this as a legitimate dietary designation.

Answer 4

Is Gelatin Vegan

Answer 5

it would definitely be Vegan. I was close to being a vegan a few years ago; no animal products or bi-products of any kind. (including, gelatin; and chicken or beef stock such as that which is in soup; mostly organic or natural foods etc).

I am still a Vegetarain. I do not eat any meat of any kind. Not even seafood. I do not eat eggs.

I drink Soy Milk (but will occasionally have real milk, though only skim milk). I do eat cheese however. AND i do eat yogurts (but i eat both regular yogurts and soy yogurts); some yogurts are made without gelatin, so read your labels.

There are different kinds of vegetarians. Some eat eggs, some eat seafood, some drink milk; Most will obstain from mostly all meat (animal flesh) products. So it really depends on the individual. Vegans are the most extreme, strict of the non-meateaters LOL.
As for what you mentioned (as in all the treats) I don't eat those either, mostly because i am allergic to artificial colouring and preservatives, not just because i try to eat healthy. But, no, a Vegan would not eat gelatin.
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Answer 6

This question always seems to cause debate.
I believe that if you're vegetarian you shouldn't eat gelatin. It's a little hypocritical not to eat any meat but then go and have Starbursts or marshmallows because an animal had to be killed to get the gelatin and you're still eating a part of it.
But, there is always the chance that someone became vegetarian for health reasons and if this is the case then I don't think it really matters because the person might be doing this just for their health and not the fact that they believe animals shouldn't be killed for food.
I guess it all depends on the person.
I'm one of those people that avoid all foods that contain gelatin even if it means having to give up Skittles.

Answer 7

I really can't believe all the ignorance I am seeing.

Vegetarians do not eat meat. Some do however consume dairy, eggs and gelatin products at their own discretion. Now, weather or not they can all call themselves "strict vegetarians", that is up for debate, and entirely circumstantial.

Vegans also do NOT eat meat. In addition, they refrain from consuming animal byproducts of any kind. Yes, this includes dairy eggs and Gelatin.

Both groups can and have known to be involved in boycotting animal made products.

I proudly call myself a vegetarian and have been one for 9 years come February. I do indulge in cheese and milk from time to time, but never eggs. I have been known to take down a few jello shots, but I was usually intoxicated already.

nobody is going to tell me that I am no longer a vegetarian due to these circumstances.

Answer 8

Vegetarianism is a spectrum, some more doctrinal, some more relaxed. Your question involves semantics and ethics.

Some sorts of vegetarians eat practically no meat for nutritional reasons- I think we eat more red meat than is healthy. This is a nutritional perspective.

Others don't eat meat for ethical reasons- meat comes from other living creatures, and we're all one big sentient cosmos. And some vegetarians are OK with milk and cheese because you don't need to kill a cow to get the milk. They balance the ethics of eating animals with the nutritional goal of ingesting some protein.

When my daughter was small, she loved hamburgers but she wouldn't eat fried chicken. Why not? Because the KFC chicken *resembled* the chicken it came from. You could see the leg or wing that wasn't changed much from when it was part of an animal; hamburger, otoh, didn't look like a cow at all. We have never been vegetarians- this was a sensibility she developed as a child on her own.

Vegans seem a bit more doctrinally extreme. Some appear to make very public statements about their enlightened ethics by not eating anything that makes a shadow. I don't know any serious vegans, but this seems impractical. I can't fault their ethics, because each of us arrives at our own values which may vary over time.

If you apply the (IMHO moderate) view that "it's OK as long as you don't kill an animal," then gelatin is not ethically OK.

Lastly, I'd semantically classify vegans as a sub-class within vegetarians. Not eating something that comes from animals seems like a decision that would fit both vegetarians as well as vegans.

And let me make one more semantic and philosophical observation. If your actions are based on ethics, your belief system seems a bit like a religion. That's fine with me, a bit of churchin' up never hurt much. But, if you're "human," you sometimes do things contrary to your stated beliefs. Thus a vegetarian who's merely human can "slide" a bit and occasionally eat gelatin because of his individual conflicts- eat something that's immediate and very tasty *or* abstain because it conflicts with your beliefs.

Thanks for the interesting and complicated question.

Answer 9

It is deffinately not vegan. Dictionary deffinition of vegetarian is no meat and in some cases any food derived from animals. I think this is the one thing were you will get the most deviation among vegetarians as far as if it is even vegetarian. I kind of look at it the same way as i look at milk and eggs, every vegetarian ought to be aware of the issues with it, should know how we get it and should make their own decision. Personally for me, i dont really buy any gelatin products, but i am not hung up on it either- if someone offers me a skittle or something that they have already bought, I'll eat it.

Answer 10

I recently just found this out as well, I was shocked because I enjoy a lot of products that contain gelatin. I'm not really sure how to know the source of the gelatin though, but if it says gelatin on the label then I'm going to stay away from it from now on. Good luck, this was a shocker to me lol.