I've noticed this too. I will be switching from paleo to clean/vegan/gluten free and it's really hard to do when you start reading labels.

Yes, I completely understand! Even though I am not vegetarian, I have some dietary restrictions due to religious observance but also for other health reasons. Trying to find foods that not only contain no animal byproducts but no alcohol as well is a pretty tough task. Like many others here, I started making mostly everything by scratch. But yes, you would be surprised how many things have some sort of animal derived ingredients!

I get it and yes its pretty rough, I had moments like this and still do which is why I switched to making things at home as much as possible rennet in cheeses is pretty rough I just just noticed it so now I may be able to cure my cheese obsession...hopefully.

I say stick to health food stores as much as possible and little by little make meals for yourself out of beans and veggies (sadly bean cans have to be checked too.)

Refried Beans sometimes contain lard. Read the label!

Also, I never get soup out anywhere without asking if it's made with meat stock. Most are. And I don't always believe them when they tell me it's not.

The Weight Watchers frozen foods almost all contain chicken fat or broth. People think I'm crazy when I start yelling in the frozen food aisle, "Why do you have to ruin a perfectly good vegetarian entree with meat products!"

Very frustrating. Making your own food is always safest.

after 13 years of being vegetarian it's second nature to read the labels of everything I buy. Also to question when I go out to eat to see if something really is meat free. It is very frustrating and after reading about the insects....time to learn how to cook for me lol

The FDA are ****ing sneaky man, I think there's a reason why the whole foods movement has grown in popularity. I can't believe but Jif is apparently not vegetarian, and I still can't figure out why because thos big long words have so many hidden meanings.

The other day I went to the store and saw Split pea and ham soup. I thought oh crap, that's something I will miss now being vegetarian. But then, right next to it, Split Pea Soup! It looked exactly the same as the split pea and ham, but was obviously a vegetarian version. I was thrilled. After finishing a bowl off, I thought Hmm I wonder what's in here that makes it so good! And there it was. Lard. Pig fat. 3 ingredients: Peas, Spices, Pig fat. Great.

I have had bad experiences with soups as well.
Once a co-worker dragged me to a restaurant for a lunch. In the restaurant I was told that their veggie soup is of course vegetarian, but when I tasted it, it was a chicken broth masked with veggies.
I have also been served a vegetarian pea soup that smelled to the high heaven of smoked pork.
So I prefer to cook my own lunch and bring it along.
Jelly lovers, have you tried agar-agar as a gelatin substitution? It's made of algae.

Katz - I've bought "jello" from the asian market that was made with agar-agar and it was good. agar-agar is really versatile.

They put the weirdest stuff in our foods disguised under unpronounceable chemical names.
I was horrified when I first found out too. The food industry pays the government and advertisers a ton of money to keep people blind and dumb.

I don't trust anything in a box, can, or jar till I've done my research.

French onion soup is pretty much heavily onioned beef stock with melted cheese on top.

Lots of sauces use anchovies. Worcestershire for example. Also some types of "A1" type sauces or BBQs.

I am always surprised by people who don't know how gelatin is made. I shouldn't be though, because apparently it isn't as common knowledge as I had assumed it was.

Label reading will bring about some interesting revelations for sure.

The most surprising one I heard is that many packaged orange juices are not vegan. Here's one small list that includes juice: http://www.blisstree.com/2010/09/15/...ontained-meat/

I'm not vegan or veggie, but I still raised an eyebrow at that one.

This is a bugbear of mine and I notice it a lot with sweets, gelatine is in so much now which means they are out of bounds - probably not a bad thing though I wish food companies would be more transparent with their labels so we could tell which are veggie friendly.

I'm never surprised any more. Lots of people don't know simple things about our food supply -- for example: milk. I spoke with several attorneys who thought cows just 'have milk in them at all times', and that we do them a favor by milking them. They didn't connect cow milk with BABY cows AT ALL. Like totally blank looks when I mention the baby cows as part of the process.

As a society, many of us are very, very disconnected from our food sources. And many people actively court ignorance, as well, because they don't want to KNOW the truth.