Monday, May 19, 2008

Bad Vegan

I've been a very bad vegan over the last 10 years or so. You see, I've always thought that Einstein Bagels were vegan. I was told they were dairy and egg free, so I just thought I was safe. This weekend I was poking around on their site, and found the ingredients including l-cystine (an amino acid that can be animal or synthetically derived. So I emailed them and this is the response I received:

Thank you for your recent email. No, our products are not vegan
products. They do carry the animo acid Lcystine which is a derived from
Duck Feathers. Thank you again and have a great day!!

Ew, that is disgusting. I'm so bummed. It is not that we really ate there all that often, but it did come in handy on a few occasions. O.K. That's all for now.

7 comments:

radioactivegan said...

how does anyone ever think "hey, let's put duck feather extract in our food!"? are most people really okay with this?

Vegan Dad said...

Well, I wouldn't beat yourself up. I have never even heard of said duck feather-derived amino acid.

Unknown said...

I don't think 'll ever pass an Einsteins without picturing a plucked duck.

Glad they were forthright with the info.

ZebraBelly: said...

I was going to recommend The Bagel Bar (not that I know it's vegan, but you can ask) but then realized probably CV is kind of far to drive to bagels, eh?

That bit about the duck feathers is, uh, kinda gross.

lao80 said...

Damn, I didn't know that. I thought that they were vegan. It always annoyed me that they don't have margarine. I asked and they said that they have a butter/margarine mix. WTH. Aren't there more people out there that want a choice?

I'll have to check Golden Bagel.

veganmomma said...

Lindsey,
Let me know what you find out about Golden. I've been eating there too! Athena loves their hummus, which I know is vegan.
Thanks for your responses everyone else. I know there is so much more to learn about being vegan, but this one really bugged me for some reason. DUCK FEATHERS??!!!

julia said...

WOAH. I had no idea. Did they really answer you with two exclamation points? OMG.