New Moon Kitchen cookies contain refined sugar and vanillin - think CHARRED ANIMAL BONES and PETROCHEMICAL
Here I was, all set to write a nice post about these great "vegan" cookies from New Moon Kitchen in Toronto, only to discover that the chocolate chips in some of their cookies are made with REFINED sugar.
Not only is refined sugar NOT what I would call "totally natural," but CHARRED ANIMAL BONES are often used to refine sugar.
The chips also contain vanillin which is typically made from a PETROCHEMICAL RAW MATERIAL.
I've just polished off heaven knows how many of these things. I think I am going to be sick.
Charred animal bones and petrochemical raw material in my clean kitchen?
This is what happened. Toni, a reader of this blog, works at a health food bakery in Toronto called New Moon Kitchen. Toni thought I might be interested in their cookies, so she sent me some.
I fell in love with the Momints (mint chocolate chip) cookies. Here is the ingredient list which is on their site and on their bag:Organic Spelt Flour (whole and light)
Evaporated Cane Juice
Semi-sweet chocolate chips
Dutch Cocoa
Organic Raw Sugar
Sunflower Oil
Peppermint Leaves
Baking Soda
Sea Salt
Liquid Lecithin
Peppermint Oil
Water
Sure, they are loaded with sugar (which explains why these cookies are 80 calories each), but, really, it is not a bad ingredient list.
But I did wonder, what are in those chocolate chips?
So I email Toni and ask what is in the chocolate chips
And this is what she emailed me:Sugar, chocolate liqour, cocoa butter, soya lecithin, vanillin
I could certainly see why New Moon Kitchen would not want to put sugar (think charred animal bones) or vanillin (think petrochemical) on their ingredient list.
So do we have charred animal bones and a petrochemical raw material in our cookie, thanks to New Moon Kitchen?
The sugar in those chocolate chips is a refined white sugar. As you know, charred animal bones is often used in the refining process. A process whose only purpose is to give sugar its white color.
And one of the flavorings is vanillin. Most vanillin is synthetic, produced from a petrochemical raw material.
Yuck.
Was it a greedy money-grab or just incompetence?
I don't know if this is just a stupid mistake or pure greed, but in ether case, for more than ten years (according to their Website, the company has been in business since 1997) vegetarians, vegans, buyers in well-respected health food stores such as The Big Carrot and Noah's Natural Foods, and anyone else trying to eat a healthy diet has trusted New Moon Kitchen.
I would be very, very interested to see what New Moon Kitchen says on their Website about this and how they plan to make it up to all those people who counted on them.
11 comments:
Hi, thanks for stopping by my vegan blog. As for white sugar and the potential for charred animal bones used in its processing, I don't make a huge deal about it when occurring in a commercial product. But I always buy raw cane sugar, or alternative sweeteners such as agave nectar, maple syrup, or stevia, for use at home.
We all draw our line somewhere, and that's okay, but for me the important thing is that I not support, as far as is practical, animal husbandry, enslavement and slaughter. Refined sugar, though not good for us anyway from a health-standpoint, may or may not contain bone char, and certainly can be made without it.
I feel deceived, refined sugar is just not a natural product...and isn't this illegal, aren't they supposed to list all the ingredients in a product?
If you can't trust a company whose product is sold in a health food store, who can you trust?
Thanks for pointing this out, especially the ground bones in the refined sugar...yikes! I am only a vegetarian, but strive to become a vegan someday. Dairy is my only problem right now, and blogs like yours help all the time to get where I would like to be. Thanks.
peace,
mike
livelife365
Do You Believe?
Hi
It's Eden here. I am the owner of New Moon Kitchen.
In response to this article what I'd like to say is that in creating my products I had a few things to gear my products towards. We are dairy free, egg free, nut and peanut free, and also kosher parve. Given that - the cookies are also suitable for vegetarians.
We chose the chips for their quality (look up Barry Callebaut chocolate and their ethics and quality before slandering their great product!) and for the fact that they could guarantee a kosher parve chip that was also nut and peanut free.
We try to please as many as possible, but give no claim on perfection. Everyone has different tastebuds, and makes different choices in their diet and in their consumer options.
I found this article to be unnecessarily negative. Before dissing a product or company - it would have been nice to get some banter back and forth about our products and choices. Toni is a supporter of your blog who sent you samples in good faith.
This type of "journalism" is what hurts people for no good reason.
If anyone reading this has any questions about our products - please email me:
eden@newmoonkitchen.com
Thanks!
Alas, Eden, you do not deny your cookies are made with refined sugar and refined sugar is typically refined with charred animal bones and your cookies are made with vanillan and synthetic vanillan is made with a petrochemical raw ingredient.
In fact, this is what your employee, Toni, said: “You were right, it is refined sugar, yikes, there goes my stary eyed idea of it being something less ... well, refined I guess. My boss is horrified by the idea of vanillin too, I expect we'll be finding something new sooner rather than later. I think we'll have to credit you for having us re-examine our ingredients :) .”
Shame.
Thanks for all your input - we are always on the lookout for the best quality ingredients. And if anyone knows of a manufacturer that makes dairy-free, nut-free, peanut-free, kosher parve chocolate chips that are not made with refined sugar (and that hold up as a great chip!) we'd be thankful for the info.
So far we haven't found one.
And for consumer info - if there are vegans or vegetarians who will not eat refined sugar - 7 of our 11 products are not made with the chocolate chips that are of concern in this article.
Thanks!
Eden
FYI, I just received an anonymous tip that the refined sugar is from Lantic - a company that does use bone char as one of its refining methods (www.lantic.ca/faq.php?lg=en).
Not that a vegan really wants to eat any refined sugar, anyway.
Almost Vegetarian,
While I completely respect your views, I'm not sure if i agree with how you handled this story...
New Moon Kitchen, and many other small food/health-oriented companies, are working as hard as they can to please as many people as possible. They have carved out a niche and created a market out of a very small, but growing audience. The fact that they have created a "dairy free, egg free, nut and peanut free, and also kosher parve" product is a testament to itself. They also made them taste good, which, I have to admit, I was initially quite skeptical about.
Which brings me to my thought. They haven't, at any point, tried to deceive you. You stated yourself that Toni told you the ingredients when asked. In fact, she was completely open about the entire thing and provided you with insight into her views and those of her boss.
You also ask whether it is a "greedy money-grab or just incompetence." Are you serious?!
I agree that refined sugar is pretty gross, but bakeries like New Moon Kitchen are few and far between. Rather than simply ripping into them, maybe we could help them become that much better by providing constructive criticism?
I strongly believe we need more New Moon Kitchens and the only way that will happen is if we support the ones that currently exist... even if they do make mistakes.
You think promoting a product to vegans that contains an ingredient no health-conscious vegan would eat (“gross” refined sugar) and not disclosing it on the packaging is not deceptive? Not only do I think it is deceptive, but I think the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would say it is downright illegal.
For all of your interested in this thread, I plan a follow-up post once I receive a response from Eden, New Moon Kitchen owner, to an email I sent after she invited us to contact her with "... any questions about our products ..." I ask about everything from the use of vanillin to the lack of ingredient disclosure.
In the meantime, I see she has yet to update her Website. Meaning there is still no mention of refined sugar or vanillin and the product is still promoted to vegans as "totally-natural."
It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get a response to my email.
Personally, I don't eat anything that is labeled "sugar." I don't trust companies anymore. It could be either raw sugar, beet sugar or *gasp* refined sugar. Anything with either sugar or a product that usually contains sugar in it, I won't go near. I'm only fourteen so it can be stressful when I can't eat half my dinner because my Mum put a chutney on it that has golden syrup in it. I really hate to do that to my parents but now she just passes me everything she's putting in and I scan it over. I found out today that canned beetroot has added sugar, bleh.
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