Is There Life 'In' Mars?
I was percolating through the quirky news stories of the day and noticed one to disappoint vegetarians.
Apparently the Mars Bar will now contain whey made with rennet, a chemical extracted from calves stomachs....ouch.
I have mentioned before that dispatching lots of cows will dramatically reduce methane emissions and therefore global warming, but I am sure a 'mars a day' will make you equally as flatulent.
Naturally this got me wondering about wine and animal products.
More bad news. Unless specifically branded 'vegetarian' most wine processing involves small amounts of melancholy meat, wrenched from happiness and dissolved into the wine simply to make it clearer (a process called fining). As the 'flesh' extracts protein, the wine clarifies. This all coagulates into a thoroughly unpleasant mess at the bottom of the barrels from where it is removed, hence the lack of reference to things like gelatin, egg white and even blood on a wine bottle.
The most obscure fining agent I have found is 'Isinglass'. This is mainly derived from the swimbladders of the beluga sturgeon fish, and is rarely used now. It must be tough losing that swimbladder, waking up on the dark murky bottom of the Caspian sea with a thick head and a scar on your side. The only route to the surface is in being caught (again), and yielding up your precious roe for black market Beluga Caviar.
On a brighter note, when a substance called 'bentonite' (silica clay) is not busy sealing up nuclear waste dumps or providing a detox diet for native South American tribes, it acts as a 'meat free' fining option, mainly for white wine.
Apparently the Mars Bar will now contain whey made with rennet, a chemical extracted from calves stomachs....ouch.
I have mentioned before that dispatching lots of cows will dramatically reduce methane emissions and therefore global warming, but I am sure a 'mars a day' will make you equally as flatulent.
Naturally this got me wondering about wine and animal products.
More bad news. Unless specifically branded 'vegetarian' most wine processing involves small amounts of melancholy meat, wrenched from happiness and dissolved into the wine simply to make it clearer (a process called fining). As the 'flesh' extracts protein, the wine clarifies. This all coagulates into a thoroughly unpleasant mess at the bottom of the barrels from where it is removed, hence the lack of reference to things like gelatin, egg white and even blood on a wine bottle.
The most obscure fining agent I have found is 'Isinglass'. This is mainly derived from the swimbladders of the beluga sturgeon fish, and is rarely used now. It must be tough losing that swimbladder, waking up on the dark murky bottom of the Caspian sea with a thick head and a scar on your side. The only route to the surface is in being caught (again), and yielding up your precious roe for black market Beluga Caviar.
On a brighter note, when a substance called 'bentonite' (silica clay) is not busy sealing up nuclear waste dumps or providing a detox diet for native South American tribes, it acts as a 'meat free' fining option, mainly for white wine.
1 Comments:
I don't think anyone is using (dried) blood in wine fining, and it is illegal in the EU
Post a Comment
<< Home