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Is-Vegan – Helps you to find out which food ingredients are vegan
- nukeop 9y agoIs mutton vegan? Apparently the answer is yes.
- WillReplyfFood 9y agoIs a sheep anything more then a biologically processed heap of vegies?
- leeoniya 9y agoIt sure is (I only eat vegetarians).
- arghwhat 9y agoSo like chicken, it is merely a higher-order vegetable?
- drivingmenuts 9y agoI grew up around sheep and I think it's fair to say that a sheep is pretty much a wooly turnip in both taste and intellect.
- masklinn 9y agoSo that makes carnivores third—order vegetables?
- WillReplyfFood 9y agoIf you get a gnu-hoof onto your head, while hunting, you can actually fall down the veggie ladder- so from third order vegetable, you can return to beeing a vegetable alltogether.
- sneak 9y agoIf the person who eats only plants is called “vegan”, then it stands to reason that a sheep that eats only plants could also be called “vegan”.
- vog 9y agoGeneral question: Wouldn't it make more sense to have a whitelist instead of (or at least in addition to) a blacklist? Moreover, I'd love to see this information maintained somewhere in Wikipedia/Wikidata.
- nathan_long 9y agoThat depends on whether there are more vegan or non-vegan foods. It also depends on which kind of failure is better: accidentally eating something non-vegan, or unnecessarily restricting an already-restricted diet. But in either case you're not going to cover every possibility. Eg, a complete whitelist would include tomatillos, cactus fruit, dandelion greens... and also stuff like "monocalcium phosphate". Whereas a complete blacklist would include bear jerky, locusts, pickled pig's feet, monkey brains, haggis... Also, checking strings is failure prone. "chicken" doesn't match "chicken breast", "chicken thighs", "mechanically separated chicken", etc. That last one is mistakenly considered vegan in the README example. If you try to match "chicken" as a substring, you might exclude "mock chicken" (if that's a real ingredient). To be thorough, this is going to have to be a VERY big list, white or black.
- camtarn 9y agoI think haggis might be covered by the existing blacklist, as it's usually made with lamb offal, and would usually appear as a sub-list on an ingredients list. For example, here's a haggis pizza: Pizza Topping (59%): Haggis (21%) [Lamb Lungs (33%), Seasoning (Oatmeal, Dried Onions, Barley Flakes, Salt, Spices (Pepper, Pimento), Water, Beef Fat (13%): Beef Liver (10%, Beef Heart (5%)], Mozzarella Cheese (Milk) (21%), Tomato Sauce (17%) [Concentrated Crushed Tomatoes, Additive: Citric Acid, Water, Rapeseed Oil, Salt, Oregano, Garlic], Pizza Base: (41%): Wheat Flour. Additives: Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamine, Water, Yeast, Salt, Rapeseed Oil, Maize Flour (and yes, haggis pizza is a thing...! I wouldn't recommend it though, to be honest, even if you do love haggis.)
- camtarn 9y agoActually, having checked the blacklist, lamb isn't on it...! That seems like a pretty big omission.
- cupofjoakim 9y agoThis is kind of cool. The really good thing is the idea of a blacklist though, but perhaps having a system to tag ingredients would be better - it could potentially help food allergics and stuff as well if we could tag "gluten" or "lacto-ovo" or whatever. Vegans are a small group compared to vegans and people who restrict their diet due to illness.
- masklinn 9y ago> The really good thing is the idea of a blacklist though It's not though, because untagged items are assumed to be suitable. This becomes an issue for people with health-related diets e.g. if you have serious food allergies you want to be very very sure your foodstuff does not contain the allergen. So a tag/categories system should have "suitability tags" (whitelist) in much the same way restaurants will have marks for vegan or jain/ahimsa or halal items, not for the opposite.
- marricks 9y agoIt’s is it vegan, not is it allergen okay. I think blacklist is a good tool for that job.
- masklinn 9y agoI'm replying to a comment which specifically mentions gluten. Gluten is an allergen, and hype aside there are people for whom gluten is an actual health risk.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- arghwhat 9y agoAre carnivorous plants vegan?
- bitwize 9y agoNo. For example, figs aren't vegan because the fig tree is fertilized by a wasp, which dies as part of the process.
- joelrunyon 9y agoBut does not eating figs, mean that that would stop the wasp from fertilizing it?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- arghwhat 9y agoYes, but eating the butcher would also stop butchering, so I'm not sure I want to plant that idea in the head of vegans...
- ratinacage 9y agoThere is no hard-and-fast rule to determine if something is vegan or not. You could just as easily argue that figs are vegan because the figs do not suffer.
- masklinn 9y agoSuffering seems to be something of the jain rather than vegan. I don't think I ever saw vegans minding potatoes (jain very much do so).
- rebuilder 9y agoI don't think I've ever met a vegan who takes such a fundamentalist view. Generally the question is more: "does this product contribute to animal suffering or environmental degradation via unnecessary resorce use of animal husbandry?" If figs aren't acceptable because wasps get digested by the plant, then surely no food is vegan, as insects are certainly involved in pollination and probably form some small percentage of almost any food product available.
- bitwize 9y agoMuch like anti-malware, you'd be better served by using a whitelist.
- joelrunyon 9y agoWe built this same function for the paleo world - http://paleo.io http://paleo.io
- DonHopkins 9y agoThe practical problem isn't separating vegan from non-vegan ingredients, or paleo from non-paleo ingredients, but separating vegans and paleos from their money. I wonder if Apple would let you publish a harmless $0.99 Digital Homeopathic Medicine app that lets your customers lick the screen to administer the medication? If there's such a thing as water memory, then surely the gorilla glass of a smartphone screen has memory too. It could even offer a $9.99 in-app purchase to download the memory of Oscillococcinum, which it could draw on the screen as a QR code for your customers to lick. https://www.homeowatch.org/history/oscillo.html https://www.homeowatch.org/history/oscillo.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillococcinum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillococcinum
- joelrunyon 9y agoThe great thing about HN used to be that people didn't denigrate others when they built things but actually gave useful feedback.
- DonHopkins 9y agoThey promoted their proprietary $0.99 app in a discussion about a free open source library, and I gave them some useful feedback about how to design a similar app that could make even more money with in-app purchases. I thought hn encouraged entrepreneurialism!
- mikestew 9y agoI don’t know when those halcyon days were (see: Dropbox), but I like the sentiment.
- jlebrech 9y agoI'd like and AI that can recognise fruit and veg as you prepare them and weight them and calculates total calories. a raw fruit and veg white list would be better.
- publicfig 9y agoThere are quite a few scales out here that can measure this exact thing. I know a big point is the AI recognizing it, but as people tend to cook with similar ingredients anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to adapt it as part of a process Here's just a few examples that I've done no research on and am receiving no compensation from: https://www.amazon.com/Greater-Goods-Nourish-Portions-Nutritional/dp/B00O5U4NDQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Greater-Goods-Nourish-Portions-Nutrit... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q3IBXUO/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q3IBXUO/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013IDHTO/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013IDHTO/
- callumlocke 9y agoIt says "true" for any ingredient it doesn't have in its list (I tried lamb, goats milk, and sausage – all are reported to be vegan). It would make more sense to just release the JSON list of known non-vegan ingredients. People can use Array#filter and Array#some themselves. EDIT: it says these are all vegan too: steak, bacon, ham, pheasant, venison, cheddar, mozzarella, ghee, lactic acid, sour cream.
- masklinn 9y ago> t says "true" for any ingredient it doesn't have in its list (I tried lamb, goats milk, and sausage – all are reported to be vegan). Hence the title specifically noting it uses a blacklist.
- callumlocke 9y agoThe HN post says uses the word blacklist, but the library itself works like this: isVegan.isVeganIngredient('ham'); // true
- travisjungroth 9y agoSeems like a pretty glaring test case...
- hmontazeri 9y agoham is a product. pork would be the ingredient which is on the list...
- contravariant 9y agoAccording to the website they're linking to, ham can also be an ingredient. Although technically I couldn't find a reference to 'HAM', but rather 'HAM (CURED WITH HONEY, SALT, SUGAR, WATER, DEXTROSE, LACTIC ACID STARTER CULTURE, SODIUM ASCORBATE, SODIUM NITRITE)' [0] [0]:https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/82389 https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/82389
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- toomanybeersies 9y agoDoesn't this fall prey to the fact that there isn't a black and what distinction for exactly what's vegan? There are people that will argue that honey is suitable for vegans: http://veganbros.com/1-reason-honey-vegan/ http://veganbros.com/1-reason-honey-vegan/ There are even people that will argue that shellfish are suitable for vegans to eat: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the_oyster.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the...
- markstos 9y agoThe bigger picture here is that plant-rich diets are one the top most effective solutions to climate change (#4 on the Drawdown.org list): http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank Rather than worrying about what is or is not vegan, just focus on eating more plants.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoI believe the saying goes "eat food, not too much, mostly plants". Having been in a relationship with a wonderful German woman for a while now, I've found out that Germany has a very solid history of vegetarian cooking. Not necessarily for ethical reasons, but because of the periods in history where meat was too expensive or simply unavailable for most people. So they had to come up with a bunch of great (primarily) vegetarian dishes. You'll probably never get me to give up my lemon chicken or shawarma completely, but you would have just as much trouble getting me to give up my portobellos or brussel sprouts.
- taejo 9y ago> There are even people that will argue that shellfish are suitable for vegans to eat: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the_oyster.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/04/consider_the... "Vegans should eat oysters" is not the same as "oysters are vegan".
- simonsarris 9y agoThere has to be a word for this kind of... comprehensive incompleteness. Being so particular about a vegan diet (for ethical reasons) strikes me as very odd when animal products are in use every day around us by vegans. Do people know we use every part of the proverbial buffalo? Or do vegans often ponder the "ingredients" in everyday objects? Is vaccinating your kids vegan? Are all vegans anti-vax? Are soaps, cosmetics, detergents, plastics, tires, and lubricants made with stearic acid and other beef products vegan? Vegans for ethical reasons seem to only not want to consume a single part of the animal, but consume the rest, which is a pretty large portion, by weight. And if you're eating organic food, isn't it more likely that your spinach was grown in a bath of bone meal, blood meal, fish meal? Do vegans know how we produce organic fertilizers?
- tedchs 9y agoIn their last example, I'd argue "MECHANICALLY SEPARATED CHICKEN" should be in the list with BEEF and WHEY. :)
- fluxsauce 9y agoI saw that too, ended up making an issue for it because it spoke to the underlying problem of using exact matching. https://github.com/hmontazeri/is-vegan/issues/9 https://github.com/hmontazeri/is-vegan/issues/9
- Faaak 9y agoSerious question: are scallops/oysters vegan ? They have no central nervous system, but are living beings.
- joaojeronimo 9y agoA lettuce is a living being
- masklinn 9y agoIndeed, and carrot juice is murder.
- LaGrange 9y agoIt's... an argument. One me and most vegans I know avoid by not being particularly interested in neither scallops nor oysters. I'm very "sentience" oriented, and have a (relatively, for a veg person) high bar for one, so personally I consider them fair, um, game. But one probably shouldn't put "vegan" on the label.
- cies 9y agoThis is indeed an interesting question, and debated by vegans. The exact definition of what makes something permissible for vegans is just not there. With "no central nervous system" a creature should not be able to feel suffering, but are we sure. There are some videos that show these shells escaping a preditor, that would show they are aware to some extend. For me it is simple, I eat everything Fungi and to the left of it in this image: https://evogeneao.s3.amazonaws.com/images/tree_of_life/tree-of-life_2000.png https://evogeneao.s3.amazonaws.com/images/tree_of_life/tree-...
- delecti 9y agoSerious answer: why does it matter? Are you an organization promoting veganism? Maybe direct your limited awareness raising funds at less ambiguous examples. Are you looking to score points against a self-professed vegan acquaintance? Maybe don't offer guidance on what other people eat unless they ask for input. Are you a conflicted vegan? If you're feeling inner turmoil about consumption of scallops/oysters then maybe abstain to be safe. Are you (as I suspect) merely concerned about definitions? Define "vegan" sufficiently and the answer should follow from that. Different self-professed vegans will use different definitions, some seek to avoid "animal products", others "animal suffering". In the latter case, an organism without a nervous system cannot "suffer" as the term is commonly defined, in the former "animal" is typically used synonymously with the kingdom Animalia.
- dblacc 9y agoWondering how hard it would be to build something that takes a picture of ingredients on a food label for text recognition, which feeds into this... or something like this
- adams866 9y ago20 loc, great job man. Keep on sharing, impressive (for vegans)
- dschulz 9y agoWould it be acceptable for vegans to eat animals that died accidentally or without human intervention? There’s some valuable proteins in that squashed skunk ma’am
- yesenadam 9y agoSpeaking personally (vegan here), that's a good question. Well, vegans tend to be people who think for themselves; there's not one thing vegans think on that or any subject. I was once in the position of having a couple of sausages on my plate at a wedding, that I knew would be thrown out if I didn't eat them, and I was hungry, so I ate them. The person I was with couldn't believe it, as it seemed to go against my professed veganism. But as eating them didn't add to animal suffering, and they'd otherwise be wasted, it wasn't a conflict for me. I don't think I'd eat them now, as I haven't eaten meat for uh 25+ years. (And never once missed it, surprisingly) So, sure, I think for vegans generally, animal suffering is the issue, and if somehow that wasn't a factor, the issue is then something like yours would be if you were hungry and came across a person that died accidentally. (See the movie Alive 1993 or read the book) disclosure: Both my gf and I have shirts saying EATING PEOPLE IS WRONG, featuring the Goya painting of Cronus eating one of his sons.
- Fnoord 9y ago> disclosure: Both my gf and I have shirts saying EATING PEOPLE IS WRONG, featuring the Goya painting of Cronus eating one of his sons. Hmm, what if the human being died from roadkill? Runs
- yesenadam 9y agoHehehe well.. I guess that's the point of Alive. It's sometimes the thing to do. Depends how hungry you are. If the alternative's dying, most people would. For some societies, e.g. Eskimo, being vegetarian would be impossible, while in ours, eating meat or animal products is totally unnecessary for almost everyone. And does a lot of harm to the environment.
- adultSwim 9y agoThe comments in this thread show: Trollin' ain't easy
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y agoI'm always interested to see that almonds are acceptable to vegans. Perhaps people should look into commercial beekeeping and how most farmed almonds are pollinated. I'd say that a colony of bees is much more intelligent than a typical cow or chicken. I'm not vegan btw, so perhaps I'm not entitled to an opinion on this - that said, I do keep bees.
- dogma1138 9y agoFrom what I’ve seen most vegans are effectively only first degree vegans they also ignore where the fertilizer comes from. https://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/mobile/fish-blood-and-bone-bucket-x1-pid2927.html https://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/mobile/fish-blood-and-bone... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_meal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_meal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_meal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_meal
- sf_rob 9y agoEven if you accept that your food comes from animal byproducts, being vegan will drastically reduce your "animal footprint". Turning blood/bone/manure into wheat is much more efficient than turning blood/bone/manure into wheat into a cow. (I'm not a vegan, I just don't find this "you can't really be a vegan" loophole compelling)
- dogma1138 9y agoI never made the argument that one can’t be vegan the argument was that if you can eat almonds you shouldn’t eat most mass produced produce since it’s not free of animal products. I really couldn’t care what people eat, and those that don’t eat meat just leave more ribeyes for me.
- Fnoord 9y ago> being vegan will drastically reduce your "animal footprint" The biggest difference to animal death one can make is going vegetarian. But even someone who goes reducetarian is already decreasing their personal and the global footprint. The difference between vegetarian and vegan is much smaller however. Most people are carnists/omni. For them, vegan is a long shot. If we lower the barrier and stop with this defeatist all or nothing approach we can slowly but surely reduce animal suffering. Do you tell your kid who's running first time that they're not quite yet a marathon runner? No, you don't do that either. Set lower standards instead. For yourself, and society. The lower barrier of entry will feel welcoming and allows carnists/omnis to try delicious vegetarian and vegan dishes. Because, yes, those do exist.
- tjr225 9y agoThe comments here are depressing. Reminds me of the comments on anything related to bicycling on reddit- extrapolations from generalized and uninformed opinions about choices people make about their own lives. Veganism(I am not vegan) is a personal choice and yet the dissenters here choose to let stereotypes color their opinions on entire groups?
- h2g3yhogw8 9y agoyes most of these comments are "I hate vegans" disguised as questions - jesus nobody's forcing you to be vegan guys, just go and eat a steak
- barnfire 9y agoI'm an atheist who eats a plant based diet but I didn't start out that way. I noticed that those who choose to eat meat are a lot like Christians in that they become unhinged when an atheist is in their midst. There's this reputation of the preachy hippy vegan, but in my experience it is the other way around.
- cgmg 9y agoDo you not see the irony in your comment?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- btrettel 9y agoVegans and cyclists both do receive a lot of flak. In my experience cyclists see a lot worse and I'm not sure why. Ian Walker noticed this too: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/the180/mmiw-inquiry-debunking-electoral-reform-and-what-is-the-west-1.3295363/why-do-drivers-hate-cyclists-1.3295461 http://www.cbc.ca/radio/the180/mmiw-inquiry-debunking-electo... I am a cyclist who is sympathetic to veganism and eats less meat than your average omnivore. The main reason I still eat meat is that I am not convinced that most plant based diets are not missing something important. Never faced much hostility for choosing to eat plants, but can't say the same for cycling. Thinking about it, I have never once met a preachy cyclist but have met quite a few preachy vegans. Level of preachiness does not seem to explain the stronger stigma cyclists have.
- styfle 9y agoI'll have to give this a package try. My wife can't eat dairy so we often have to find an item on the menu marked as Vegan to guarantee it doesn't contain any dairy. Otherwise, it's nearly impossible to get a server to answer the question, "Does this item contain dairy or is it cooked in dairy? Butter, cream, milk, etc." A common answer we get is, "I don't know if its dairy-free but it's gluten-free."
- tmaly 9y agoI find this list very helpful for non-vegans with food allergies. Thank you
- doggydogs94 9y agoI am sorry, but most vegans I know always want to talk about ... being vegan. Kind of like socializing with a vocal religious convert.
- FrostedButts 9y agoThis repo is an elaborate joke, right? It's just doing basic set intersection. You need maybe a minute and six lines of code to do this, not six THOUSAND excluding the database!!! You can't even pass it off as just the work of an amateur either, because it has all this complex integration garbage with babel, travis, a linter, unit tests, npm, and so on. What is even going on?