Vegetarianism and The Circle of Life

There was a bit of a outrage in the UK recently when Mars Bars went non-veggie ... specifically, they were going to have a bit of animal enzyme, rennet. The Vegetarianism Societies called on the public to protest, which they did (all 6,000 of them! Gosh isn't that a large number of people who won't buy Mars bars?) such that Mars apologized and pulled the plug on these new plans.

Now, I have nothing against vegetarianism ... people have the right to choose what they will, or will not, eat. One cannot expect a vegetarian to tuck into a bloody steak. But to protest a chemical found in an animal (and this isn't an isolated case - I know people who refuse to buy products because it'd contain traces of animal gelatin) ... this seems a little silly to me.

Cast your mind back to a fortune-reviving, animated production by Disney that gave us smelly warthogs, smart talking loner meekrats, an exciting soundtrack ... and the "Circle of Life". Simple philosophy on the surface, really - everything is connected.

So ... cow crap is used to grow plants ... ergo, plants can contain traces of that cow (and BTW, this is sometimes how diseases and evolutionary mutations can sometimes spread). Does that mean we swear off plants grown in the field, grown from manure usage? Let's all rely purely on pharma-fed produce!

Can anyone offer a rational explanation of this seemingly-ridiculous eccentricity vegetarians sometimes exhibit?

Comments

[Bioswami]

Evolutionary mutations spreading??? Don't think so.. :)

[Kartik]

Don't be a Michael Moore wannabe with your 'evolutionary mutations' jazz. You just want to be controvercial. Fine be that way - just read this and you will hopefully be slightly more enlightened: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6695885.stm

[Shripriya]

Er... a very basic difference - in one case you kill the animal and in the other, you don't. Pretty simple, yes? Which is why milk is fine, but gelatin is not (since you kill it to grind the hooves).

What Mars did was truly bizzare - since the 1990s, chymosin (the enzyme that coagulates milk and converts it into cheese) have been bio-engineered and produced by bacteria and fungii (recombinant DNA technology)- in fact over 80% of cheese in the US is produced this way.

My guess is that Mars moved to rennet purely because of cost.

[lady]

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