Product & Label Guide

Cactus, apple, pineapple and mushroom leathers: a 2021 lab study found several plant-based alternatives were mostly polyurethane, and some contained restricted substances. What the shoe label tells you, and what it does not.

Honey is made by bees as their own food store, so it is not vegan. What the hive loses, what research says about whether bees can suffer, how honey compares with sugar, and the syrups that do the same job.

Some wines and beers are clarified with gelatin, isinglass, casein or egg white. Because these count as processing aids, the label usually leaves them out; here is how to choose a vegan bottle.

A 2026 study of 56 plant drinks sold in Turkey found more than twice as much protein in soy drinks as in oat drinks, while oat drinks were higher in sugar. European data, the cholesterol evidence and what to check on the carton.

Section 12 of Turkey’s food labelling guideline sets out how vegan and vegetarian foods may be named: permitted and banned wording, the trace rule, restaurant menus, kremsos and the 31 December 2026 deadline.

Yeast does not make B12; the B12 in nutritional yeast is added during production, and fortified and unfortified products share the same name. Which line to read on the label, how little “source of B12” can legally mean, how much a serving gives; plus light, gluten and gout.

An E number tells you what a substance does in food, not what it is made from. E120 is carmine, extracted from dried cochineal insects, and the colour with the best-documented allergy reports. E904 is shellac, the resinous secretion of a scale insect, harvested with the insects still in the raw material. E920 is L-cysteine, authorised from fermentation, from chemical synthesis and from the hydrolysis of keratin from poultry feathers, with nothing on the label to say which. And E441 is not on the current approved list at all, because gelatine is regulated as an ingredient rather than as an additive.

A plant drink replaces milk only if the manufacturer decided to fortify it, and that decision is written on the label. Six things to check in one pass, two traps that catch careful shoppers, and what the composition studies actually found.

Certified Plant Based allows no animal-derived ingredients and caps non-plant ingredients at 10%, but says nothing about animal testing. Vegan seals add testing rules and cross-contamination handling. What each scheme publishes, why the law is silent, and why no seal is an allergen guarantee.