8th Continent Soymilk apparently uses lanolin to get its Vitamin D. They say it comes from 'wool fat'. That's a misnomer, as lanolin comes from the sebaceous glands of sheep skin, not from the wool. (You can have lanolin on wool, but it's not produced by wool, the renewable resource that doesn't require the sheep to be killed. I suppose you might be able to reclaim the lanolin from the wool itself, making it more 'humane'. Still, how would you know?)
I know at least one person who's allergic to lanolin. I wonder what reaction she would have to drinking this? Granted, it may not be in a form that would bother her, but it's also not labelled in any way to show that there's lanolin-derived products.
Not to pick on soy milk, Vitamin D that is used to enrich dairy products are also often of animal origin. According to a source quoted in the article, Vitamin D can be produced by irradiating yeast (oh, what fun, irradiated food) or from fish (that would work for me, as I am an pesce-vegetarian), wool, hides, or cattle brains. Oh, yum.
My other concern about soy, genetic modification (sorry, I just don't want my food mucked with), is also not addressed by this particular brand. So even though it's not all that well-regulated, I'll stick with the more expensive soy beverages that say they're organic, and have nice, short lists like 'water and soybeans' in them. I'll just spend a few minutes in the sun each day for my Vitamin D, thank you.
Gee, the things you learn from chatty librarians (the list at Topica).
No comments:
Post a Comment