(no subject)

[lethargic_man]

Mars Bars, Marathon Snickers, Maltesers, Bounty, Minstrels and Milky Way, and the ice-cream versions of all of the above, are no longer vegetarian, for any products with a best before end date after 1 October.

ETA: ...but, astonishingly, it appears they're still kosher.

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info.

Why do they keep adding ridiculous things to perfectly good products?

Signed, she who can no longer eat Kitkat bars, thanks to added colourant, because, y'know, chocolate without colouring is some sort of pale green.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

They're not adding anything, they're just diversifying their sourcing. They buy whey from cheese makers ("blessed are the cheese makers"), to whom it's a waste product. Until now they have bought only from suppliers whose whey is strictly vegetarian, but as of now they've expanded the list of whom they'll buy from, so it's possible that some of their whey might come from cheese makers who use animal rennet. That is, they've stopped boycotting those suppliers.

The reason the whey is still kosher is because the rennet isn't an intentional ingredient, and doesn't affect the product at all. The manufacturers don't add rennet to milk in order to produce whey, they add rennet to milk in order to produce cheese; the whey is what's left over. The whey tastes the same, and behaves the same way in all respects, whether it happens to contain rennet or not. Thus, any trace amounts of rennet it contains are neither intended nor desired, and don't affect its kashrut.

The cheese is a different story, because the rennet is added intentionally, and the cheese wouldn't be the same without it. So even if the actual proportion of animal rennet in the finished cheese is minute, it's still not kosher.

[liv]

Oh, thank goodness for that ETA. I nearly cried when I saw your post earlier today. It makes sense that if I eat cheese made with animal rennet, I can also eat chocolate where animal rennet has been used to prepare the whey. It's not that I eat a lot of cheap newsagent chocolate, but it's so nice not having to worry about what I do eat, and being able to bring it to Jewish events and so on. It's still annoying that they've made it unvegetarian, though.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Update: the Manchester Beth Din has ruled that Mars &c are no longer kosher.

Which raises the question, of course, of what point up the M6 they stop being kosher. (Gerrard: "Birmingham's a bit iffy.")

[snjstar.livejournal.com]

When I read in the paper about this I assumed that it would make them non-kosher and then was surprised when I realised this was not the case.

[snjstar.livejournal.com]

Mars bars get veggie status back

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6673549.stm