I was so excited. I was shopping for groceries and notice a package of wonton wrappers on sale for $1.00. Yes, I know that wonton wrappers will almost always contain eggs. However, they were in the vegetarian section of the food case and I am a hopeless optimist when it comes to finding vegan food. When I checked the ingredients the only thing listed under allergies was wheat, which isn’t a problem for me. Then I checked the cholesterol, 0! Looking good, I could almost taste the vegan wontons stuffed with vegan cream cheese. Then I noticed L-cysteine on the ingredient list. What the heck is L-cysteine?
Pulling out my smart phone and typing L-cysteine into the search I already knew it probably wasn’t going to be good.
Ever get grossed out by finding a hair in your food? Well…
What is L-cysteine made of? It is most commonly made from human hair, duck feathers, or occasionally pig bristles and hooves. And don’t think that L-cysteine is only in wonton wrappers. It is also commonly found in pizza dough, bread rolls and pastries. Some synthetic versions are available but they are very expensive. I’m pretty sure my $1.00 package of wonton wrappers did not include the synthetic variety. But I’m not taking any changes. Vegan or not, I have no desire to eat anything that is made from hair. That is just wrong.
For now I’m off to look up vegan recipes for wonton wrappers.
Thanks for the information though, very informative! and looking forward to the vegan wonton recipe when you find one!
By: vegansmarties on October 19, 2011
at 11:49 am
Ugh! The stuff we “allow” in our food is insane (I use “allow” in quotation marks because I think that most people don’t really know what’s in our food, and might have a problem if they really knew). Thanks for the post!
By: Jen Hnatko on October 27, 2011
at 5:59 pm
Jen, It is amazing what people eat without knowing. What really amazes me is that people can continue to eat things like gelatin after they know what is in it.
By: Debbie on October 27, 2011
at 10:10 pm
Yeah, it definitely shows up in crappy (ie heavily processed, not organic) bread. I’m not one to knock cheap or processed food if it’s vegan; I practically live off of faux-meat and canned vegan chili. But yeah, so things are just disgusting. It’s like carmine extract and rennet…fucking gross, even if you freely consume animal products. It gives me the shivers to think about the crap I put in my body before I went vegan all out of ignorance.
By: warriortoo on February 20, 2012
at 10:42 pm
For me the worse this was to learn about Jello. My favorite snack as a kid was jello. How could those sweet jiggle treats be bad? Who know they came from rendered animals. So wrong….so very, very wrong.
By: Debbie on February 21, 2012
at 7:33 pm
One day I will learn to proof-read. *SOME things are just disgusting. (ugh I wish word press let you edit comments.)
By: warriortoo on February 20, 2012
at 10:43 pm
By: Debbie on February 21, 2012
at 7:31 pm
Cysteine supplements are quite helpful in people who are suffering from angina.”
Make sure you visit our very own web-site as well
http://www.healthmedicinelab.com/spleen-pain/
By: Jim Zeman on November 12, 2012
at 5:32 am