BBC NEWS | Business | Mars starts using animal products

What do people think? Is this a bad thing?

I think it is a bad thing, why switch to animal rennet? It makes no sense.

It's probably cheaper...

So will they label them "not suitable for vegetarians".

I'm not vegetarian but I do believe in informed choice.

can I get some steak sauce with that?

I would think they have to label them not suitable. But, I don't know, no such labels exist over here. Makes reading ingredients list absolutely mandatory as well as a laptop connected to a veggie database to tell you if someone uses animal ingredients in their product.

What I'm curios to know is, is that all Mars products world wide? Certain things don't work out that way. Example: Skittles in the rest of the world are vegetarian (vegan even), but in North America, they aren't either as they contain gelatin.
This quote's got me though:


"Strict vegetarians" means "vegans" and they wouldn't be eating their products in the first place because of the milk!

Animal rennet is more expensive than the "artificial" one, but not much. Its advantage is that the resulting cheese has a more predictable and consistent structure, which is why it is almost exclusively used for the higher priced products. Almost all the cheap stuff you get in a supermarket uses artificial rennet.

All I can wonder is if they were that eager to stay away from milk when it was coming out their mum's breasts.

I never knew it was vegetarian... Part of me wants a refund on all those Mars Bars (mmmmmmm)

don't eat them

Too late for that, that's why part of me wants a refund

Make your own time machine :P

Well as that is a normal behaviour, to drink the milk of your mother, I'd say not. Cow's milk is milk intended for, you guessed it, cows...

Milk is milk. It's a good source of calcium.

If we want to get into that, soy beans weren't intended to produce soy juice (calling that trash milk is a disgrace) for us to drink... yet people do anyway.

Lots of Vegetarians I know eat chocolate, that's not a smart move for Mars.
But for me, I could care less, as long as the taste and price doesn't change(or actually the price should decrease here in Egypt)

Extreme Coder

Somehow, I can't even picture a vegan eating a Mars bar. Are you sure that any of them really care if a Mars bar is not vegan?

You'd be surprised! I know a few vegans.

EDIT: woops, posted too quick.
Most of them are easy going and are strict but they aren't going to dissect everything to make sure it's completely free of animal products. BUT, there are a few, and they're loud about it.

Pointless. People eat them anyway, why kill animals?

And they have just announced that they made a mistake and are changing back to veggie rennet

BBC NEWS | UK | Mars bars get veggie status back

Some tangent trivia for vegetarians...

There was a link on that page - High IQ link to being vegetarian
Intelligent children are more likely to become vegetarians later in life, a study says.

A Southampton University team found those who were vegetarian by 30 had recorded five IQ points more on average at the age of 10.

Researchers said it could explain why people with higher IQ were healthier as a vegetarian diet was linked to lower heart disease and obesity rates.

The study of 8,179 was reported in the British Medical Journal.

I then went to the British Medical Journal to see if the source agreed with the news article.

IQ in childhood and vegetarianism in adulthood: 1970 British cohort study
On average, vegetarians had a higher childhood IQ score than non-vegetarians. According to sex, the mean (SD) childhood IQ score of vegetarians compared with non-vegetarians was 106.1 (14.7) and 100.6 (15.2) for men and 104.0 (14.1) and 99.0 (14.7) for women, differences of 5.5 and 5.0 points (P<0.001).

Among those who had taken vegetarianism to its logical conclusion (“gone the whole hog,”, as it were) and become vegan (no animal products), mean IQ scores were lower. On average, vegans had a childhood IQ score that was nearly 10 points lower than other vegetarians: mean (SD) IQ score 95.1 (14.8) in vegans compared with 104.8 (14.1) in other vegetarians (P=0.04)

... of four studies reporting data on educational attainment two showed higher levels in vegetarians than in non-vegetarians, whereas in two other studies the opposite association was seen. In previous analyses of the 1970 British cohort study, a greater consumption of non-meat products, such as bread or fresh fruit, was apparent in people with high educational attainment.

All I think that proves really is that people who are smarter eat a healthier diet - whether that diet is vegetarian or not. To claim that vegetarians are smarter would be silly IMO... Although I would say I am smarted than most (I wonder if anyone can spot the sarcasm in that?)