Omega-3 trend could lead vegetarians to eat fish by mistake

NUTRAingredients.com (Europe)

Hot on the heels of my proclamation that veg food contamination would be a more frequent news item as vegetarianism became more common comes this story from the UK about the potential contamination of seemingly vegetarian products by fish:

The trend towards adding omega-3 to dairy and other staple food products may be causing vegetarians to inadvertently eat fish products, a predicament that could be avoided through open, honest labelling.

The Vegetarian Society in the UK does not consider fish-eaters to be vegetarians, although dairy products that are free from animal derivatives, such as animal rennet, and free-range eggs are acceptable.

But with the explosion of omega-3-containing products onto the market, there is concern that some dairy and egg products contain fish oil that is not declared on the label.

Moreover the omega-3 in some dairy products and eggs are believed to be a result of feeding animals with fish – even though it does not form part of their natural diet.

That fish is not vegetarian may come as a shock to some, amazing as that is (I've never understood how one could consider seedless, reproducing fish to be vegetarian), but even an Indian Fisheries Minister recently tried to classify prawns as vegetarian! One expects that from Forrest Gump, who called shrimp "fruit of the sea," but of course the Fisheries Minister was more concerned with improving prawn sales than protecting the ethical and cultural vegetarian diet of millions upon millions of Indian vegetarians.

It's good that vegetarians have societies like The Vegetarian Society looking out for them. The Vegetarian Society worked with the Food Standards Agency on a set of guidelines for vegetarian and vegan products that were released a couple of months ago:

However a spokesperson for the FSA told NutraIngredients.com that these guidelines are not legally enforceable, but that they are designed to improve labelling by providing criteria, help manufacturers avoid common mistakes, and help enforcement agencies identify misleading labelling that contravenes the 1990 Food Safety Act or the 1968 Trade Descriptions Act.

She confirmed that if a product claims to be vegetarian but is found to contain fish oil, it could be seen as misleading labelling. This interpretation excludes products that are generally presumed to be vegetarian, such as milk, but are not labelled as such.

For now the FSA is committing only to reviewing the guidelines once they have had time to take effect – although The Vegetarian Society's goal is the development of legal definitions of the terms.

As food and supplement ingredients and labelling become more and more complicated, it is going to become increasingly necessary for concerned vegetarians of all stripes to depend on resources put out by trusted organizations like The Vegetarian Society Approved Products Database and their seedling logo.

Of course, the Vegan Society has a trademark they use to distinguish vegan products and restaurants.

Tags: Omega-3 | fish | fish oil