We would have contacted them maybe two or three months ago.
Cheers,
Ross-c
We would have contacted them maybe two or three months ago.
Cheers,
Ross-c
Thanks for letting me know. Hopefully 'Is it Vegan' just haven't updated their site.
Or it could be due to different definitions. I would be surprised if Iceland dark chocolate wasn't made on the same machines that was used to make milk chocolate. Hence there may be very small traces of dairy in the chocolate even though there is no dairy in the recipe. I think that some years ago Tropical Source non-dairy chocolate found out about this, and there was some discussion about it on various vegetarian groups. At that time the owner of Tropical Source was looking to find production lines never used for dairy, but I never heard what happened, and haven't seen Tropical Source on sale for some time.Evilfluffbunny
I did also have a discussion with someone in a kosher food shop about kosher pareve (hence non-dairy I believe) chocolate. I was told that in general even the kosher chocolate was made on the same machines as dairy. He said that either the machines were cleaned to remove dairy chocolate before making the pareve chocolate, or several batches of dark chocolate that was not going to be labelled pareve was put through the machine before making pareve dark chocolate. Note that pareve chocolate is not guaranteed vegan.
I note that Waitrose chocolate which is not, according to them, vegan even though it is also "Belgian" and has a very similar ingredients list to the Iceland chocolate. From speaking to their customer service department some years ago now, they were aware of the slight contamination with dairy products, and were advising people about it.
Personally I still eat the Iceland chocolate. In the eyes of some people this may make me not a vegan. But, my history of veganism has been one of starting not even vegetarian, and slowly dropping things, passing through ovo-lacto, through dietry vegan, to where I am now. So perhaps in the future I'll have cancelled eating chocolate that has been anywhere near a machine used for dairy chocolate.
Cheers,
Ross-c
Following up my own post, this is what has happened to Tropical Source chocolates. The third (or so) paragraph on this page mentions the problem of otherwise vegan chocolate being made on machines used to make dairy chocolate.
Cheers,
Ross-c
http://www.nspiredfoods.com/tropicalsrc.html
I'm 31 and I STILL haven't seen any of the Star Wars films.Evilfluffbunny
Vegans go all the way.
My mom and I do not understand the whole thing about chocolate. like which kinds are vegan and which arent. we're really having trouble with it. can someone explain it in detail for us????? PLEASE?!
Dear mssara1214mssara1214
To be sure you could stick to only buying chocolate that is promoted as being vegan.
If not you need to ensure that your chocolate has no dairy like milk, milk powder or cream or butterfat.
I have heard a rumour that mainstream chokkie has what you might call lard or beef fat in it to enhance the texture. But I dunno if that is true.
Hope that helps some
I am sure that there are others who will post here soon enough to provide you with more info
Antony chocolateless
well its as simple as reading the ingredients. if theres no dairy ingredients than its vegan
oh and many people are confused about cocoa butter, but this is vegan.
"you dont have to be tall to see the moon" - african proverb
Yes, they should call it cocoa fat, instead of butter.foxytina_69
Dark chocolate is usually, but not always, vegan. Like abrennan posted, look out for added milk, milk powder, cream, butter, or whey. if you want to go even further, if the sugar in the chocolate was refined in the USA, it may not be vegan.
I like Dagoba dark chocolate bars and cocoa powder. They are vegan and free trade.
Hello, MsSara.
This link might help:
http://www.veganfamily.co.uk/chocolate.html to give some idea of what's available. I'm not sure how up-to-date the info is, though.
I might one day attempt to make my own chocolate. I will use cocoa or perhaps baking chocolate. Apparently, the secret is in the tempering, which involves heating the baking chocolate and the other ingredients of your choice until it melts, and then slowly cooling them so that the new chocolate remains solid at room temperatures.
I could sell them as Martin Bars.
Regards,
Martin the Chocowizard.
If you could make them like Mars Bars or Twixes I would have to buy shares in your company, beacuse the amount I would buy and eat would send the shares sky-rocketing, thus funding my habit!
Some nice pics there, Absent. And, you are very talented as a maker of corsages and earrings. They are not really my style, though. I would lose my macho, butch image if I went out in them. I might ask you for advice on taking flower photographs if I run into any difficulties.
On that link I gave is a recipe for vegan Mars bars and Marathons, too. Haven't looked at them yet properly so don't know if they would make pukkah-tasting versions.
I will give you 100 shares in the company.
Regards,
Martin.
Well I can be commissioned..what kinds of earrings would you like?
(By the way guys, once my little accessory selling business is up and running, if you see anything you like I'll happily give discount to vegans, and I will post overseas to you guys whereas usually it's only UK-plus if you want something special I'll give you a cheaper rate for it)
Much, if not most, dark chocolate is made on the same machines as dairy chocolate, without the machine being cleaned in between different batches of chcolate. Hence there will be a small amount of dairy products in dark chocolate even if the ingredients don't list dairy or other animal products.
Cheers,
Ross-c
Do you have proof of that Ross_Clement? BTW, 80% cocoa in the dark chocolate is good.
Eve
I've been told this by suppliers on the telephone, and it has been discussed in various vegan/vegetarian newsgroups before. If you phone the company you buy chocoate from they should be able to tell you the situation for the brands you buy.eve
Cheers,
Ross-c
Surely the packaging would have to say something like "may contain traces of dairy products" on it for those who are allergic to dairy? Like when chocolate may contain traces of peanuts, etc, they have to state so on the wrapper. I thought it would be mandatory for dairy too, since someone could have a bad reaction...
"Man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills" - Arthur Schopenhauer
absentmindedfan
I can be commisioned to test all the choclotaes and research their contents all you need to do is send them to me. !!!
Antony
I can't find the email, but somewhere I have one from a chocolate manufacturer mentioning the contamination issue, and saying that one of their brands of chocolate will have the packaging modified to say "may contain traces of dairy" in the near future.Yoggy
If you want to know the situation for chocolate you eat, I suggest you contact the manufacturer.
Edit:
As a quick check, I phoned both Green & Black's and Cadbury's. Green and Black's told me that they use the same machines for both milk and dark chocolate, but that the machines are cleaned before making dark chocolate. I asked Cadbury's about "Fry's Chocolate Creams" which do not include any animal ingredients in their list. They told me that they are vegetarian but not vegan because of the "cross-contaminantion issue" (their words).
Cheers,
Ross-c
Last edited by RossClement; Aug 30th, 2005 at 10:39 AM. Reason: Added additional stuff
Most (all?) companies who use shared equipment will always clean the machinery between products. The "may contain traces" line is for people who are super-sensitive to whatever residue might still be on the machine even after a meticulous scrubbing.
It's vegan, which means it's vegetarian which means there's nothing unheathy in it. -- my guy trying to explain vegan junkfood.
Mmmmmmmmmm chocolate. Can't wait to see Willy Wonka.
I may have to pick me up another Sweet Williams bar or a choc chip cookie....
I saw a great tee the other day that said "Chocolate makes my clothes shrink!"
Love it!
Ooompa loompa dumpadee doooBanana
i'n not confused about chocolate- are you
Ooompa loompa dumpadee dee
i want to get some chocolate in me
I don'e eat near as much chocolate as I did when I was vegetarian, I'm off eating so much sugar especially.
It's a matter of identifying appropriate brands as a vegan and sourcing them if you wanna be eating em.
antony wonka
LOL! I saw it on the weekend. Was crap. They took the heart out of the story. And they had one scene where the oompa loompas were whipping a cow to make "whipped cream". Was not impressed. And the movie didn't make you want to eat chocolate at all. There was not much drool factor. But I ate chocolate anyway
oh no Johny wouldn't do that would be
ooompa looompa bumpadee booo
I go on these little missions on a regular basis to source ingrediants I want to play with, and sometimes take years in the process finding certain things.
One such thing that I've been searching for for about 10 months is cocoa butter in the UK, food grade, at a good price in a quantity less than about £30. I've tried is lots of places including contacting smaller chocolate manufacturers, but no one is willing to sell me less than about £50 worth, which is a bit overkill for the needs of one vegan living alone! I found a cosmetics place selling it, but for use in making soap etc and whilst supposidly 100% pure they can't assure me as to whether it is still suitable for food use due to being handled as if it isn't. I'm about 95% sure that vegan white chocolate is possible (another thing I spent vast amounts of time sourcing and came up blank), but I need to find cocoa butter before I can try.
My friend just kindly brought me back some Ghirardelli squares, that has milk choc with caramel, milk choc with almonds and dark choc squares in it. I read this thread quickly and assumed the dark was okay, so ate a square, but then looked at the ingredients out of curiosity and it has milk fat in it. I feel sick and hope this does make my stomach go crazy
i hope u end up feeling okay kumen! *hugs*
i LOVE tropical source chocolate. especially the rice crisp chocolate bar. its my favorite.
"you dont have to be tall to see the moon" - african proverb
I wanna find some chocolate that is vegan that isnt dark and doesnt taste like shit.
Im glad i got that off my chest
Nah, there are a few good ones out there, but it just dosnt taste the same.....
Has anyone tried this?
coz it says that it tastes like milk chocolate! thatd be a nice thing if it did....
i like the way that this board makes the bl**d word naughty, but not shit, makes a change
Never tried that brand, but have tried quite a lot of different varieties of chocolate suitable for vegans. I don't know whether my tastes have changed, or I've grown a greater appreciation for the stuff than the average people who shovels as much cadburys dairy milk into their gobs as possible, but I enjoy good quality dark chocolate designed for non vegans who like good quality dark chocolate now just as much as I did milk, and vegan 'milk chocolate' just tastes weird.
It would be so much easier if they sold half the stuff in shops. I don't like dark chocolate
"It's not that people suddenly start breeding like rabbits; it's just that people stopped dropping like flies" - population explosion
Does anyone know if Tesco Dark chocolate (the economy version, not the Swiss) is Vegan? It mentions lactose in the ingredients list, but doesn't mention milk products in the allergy advice section. I understand that lactose can be synthetic and is not necessarily from a dairy source.
thanks,
t
Metalhead, according to isitvegan.info The following are vegan:
Chocolate Chocolate Gift Stacking Boxes 140g Tesco
Chocolate Fairtrade Plain Chocolate Tesco
Chocolate Free From Chocolate Tesco
Chocolate Free From Milk Chocolate
Lately I've noticed a few thing on www.isitvegan.info that are not vegan. The latest being tesco jam tarts which now contain milk. I've emailed them before but they don't bother replying. Also some stuff does not exist such as cooking chocolate from Thorntons. I've lost faith in that site now.
I know of no non animal sources of lactose.
I trust the ingrediants list first, then allergy seperate. I'm not sure if they still do, but Sainsburys were selling for a long time cranberry jelly containing cochineal, which on the front had a suitable for vegetarians logo.
"Mr Flibble - forum corruptor of innocents!!" - Hemlock
Thats terrible. No wonder us vegans always read the ingredients on the pack even if it say vegan on it. When i went to the vegan fair i couldnt help but check what was in things before i ate them. Cant trust anyoneMr Flibble
After a year of searching for food grade cocoa butter in the UK I've finally gotten my hands on a couple of kg and am experimenting with white chocolate at the moment. The first recipe I tried, against my better judgement, was the one linked above.FR
Disgusting! Yuck! I have a healthy distrust of vegweb/vegsource recipes, and this one is a good example of how to waste expensive ingrediants. Far, far, far too sweet and doesn't have a high enough cocoa butter content to set up properly.
The second I tried was 34% cocoa butter, 60% soya milk, 5% sugar, borbon vanilla paste and soya lechicin. It set up almost as hard as I'd like in the fridge, smells great but tastes a bit odd. More experimentation needed, however before thowing it in the bin i decided to see what it's like as a massage bar. Yum! Melts really easily, stinks of gorgeous white chocolate and is cheap to make compared to lush. Edible too, although not in large quantities.
So now I'm experimenting to find a good edible white chocolate recipe, and a massage bar one too!
whadda ya reckon for the ingrediants? White chocolate but with caramellised sugar?twinkle
"Mr Flibble - forum corruptor of innocents!!" - Hemlock
Or (I would think) that Dulce de Leche recipe that Diane found for you a couple of weeks ago would make Caramac when mixed with the White ChocolateMr Flibble
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
I'm not so sure. Going to the hassle of making a good dulce de leche (the recipe Diane found I'm still sure is just a toffee sauce and that the caramelisation of lactose what gives the real stuff it it's unique taste) might be wasted if all i need is caramelised sucrose (dead easy).
"Mr Flibble - forum corruptor of innocents!!" - Hemlock
Hmm, I'd have thought the caramelised sugar on it's own would have been too much, if memory serves me correct Caramac has condensed milk in it, which I'm assuming is cooked to a 'fudgy' consistency - a bit like the fudgy layer in a mississippi mud pie - so to make Caramac the fudgy condensed soy milk (which I think is what the Dulce De Leche sounds like) would work better - but that's just my opinion
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.
valid point
"Mr Flibble - forum corruptor of innocents!!" - Hemlock
we don't get taken that seriously. I admit to faking "allergies" to get folks to be SURE what is in my food. also asking about hallal or kosher elicits more co-operation. That's it: we can get recognized as a religion and elect ourselves a pope. We already have a self-ordained roman vegan orthodoxy
the only animal ingredient in my food is cat hair
I agree with Mr Flibble - I don't know of a vegan lactose - lactic acid I think can be either. Tesco organic plain chocolate at 79p 100g is vegan and really nice!
yes, good quality chocolate. I agree lactose= milk but lactic acid is produced by bacteria commercially- think sauerkraut
the only animal ingredient in my food is cat hair
Actually, I've since found that caramac doesn't even contain cocoa butter!
Anyway, changing the subject slightly, I've just had a white chocolate orgasm! I decided to try making white chocolate mouse when I got home. I made it up from scratch and it tastes awesome . No doubt could be better with refinement, but incase anyone has access to cocoa butter and wants to try:
50ml soya milk, 45g cocoa butter and 25g castor sugar melted together. Then blended till smooth with 1tsp soya lethicin, 150g silken tofu and 1tsp chocolate extract.
I didn't get a chance to see whether it would set up or not, i ate it all with a spoon straight from the blender
"Mr Flibble - forum corruptor of innocents!!" - Hemlock
I have to order food-grade cocoa butter online if I want it. No one here has it!
Thanks for trying that recipe, Mr. Flibble! You've saved me the hassle of throwing away some expensive cocoa butter.
I have been away from home so much recently that I haven't gotten around to trying many recipes on my list, especially desserts (there's only 2 of us now). So please keep trying and posting your results!
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Mr Flibble
Great work Mr Flibble you are an inspiration, I know I once called you finicky, in regard to your recipe requests but now I see your perfectionability
Okay, tried some Montezuma's truffles today after they were recommended by someone on this board (you know who you are) i was told 'they're better than booja booja truffles' if anyone else hears about this, be sceptical, personally, i believe they are not better than bb, i think that all the organic vegan truffles are expensive, and it's good to try them out, but Monty zs are soooooo not worth it.
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