Links Vegetarian Guide to Label Reading Vegans and vegetarians strive to avoid animal products in their diets. Those who would like to go further and avoid the small amounts of animal ingredients present in many commercial foods can do so by familiarizing themselves with label reading. Currently, there exist many different animal ingredient lists, most of which are outdated and over-inclusive.
Different products have different labelling requirements.
Most other categories including alcoholic beverages, medicines, health and body care products, etc., have much less stringent requirements. Medicines for instance are only required to list active ingredients. Fortunately most companies are very responsive to phone calls and letters about their ingredients and many have toll-free numbers for such inquiries. These include lard, animal shortening, gelatin, cholesterol, and tallow, which are animal derived by definition. Alternatives to gelatin include agar-agar, carrageenan, and cornstarch.