I hated how, when I was a kid, being a vegetarian made me different. It wasn’t just that I couldn’t have the pepperoni pizza in the cafeteria; I couldn’t have Oreos, because my dad told me that the filling was just sugared lard. This, it turns out, was only partially true. I couldn’t eat Jell-O because he told me that it was made up of ground-up cow bones. This, also, was not 100% accurate, but was relatively close to the truth.
As I got older (keep in mind, I was about 5 when he told me all of this), I realized that Oreos were no longer made with lard, just plain old sugary tire rubber (or something). I never really addressed the gelatin issue, but I pretty much kept away from it, mainly unconsciously.
When I started choosing food for myself, I made sure to read the labels of everything I bought, because there were always some surprises. Baked Lays, for instance. I love the sour cream and onion version, but the BBQ? If you look closely, you’ll see that they list chicken fat as one of the last ingredients. It never occurred to me that one variety of chip would be fine while another wouldn’t, and I definitely had a few bags before I figured this out.
So yes, that’s my big secret: even though I’m a life-long vegetarian, a couple of things have gotten past the goalie. There’s always the shady diner where the eggs taste suspiciously like bacon, or the soup in the restaurant that the waiter swears is vegetarian, but you know he’s totally making it up (it still very well may be, but he is definitely not as sure as he’s making himself out to be). I’ve been exposed to meat, and oftentimes, have not even realized it. This is where things get tricky for me.
Let’s get back to gelatin. Remember how I found out that while Oreos used to be made with lard, they no longer were? Over the years I started to assume that this was true for gelatin as well. Granted I had nothing upon which to base this belief, but I figured that surely food technology had advanced to the point where there was an alternate source for Jell-O other than cow bones. I thought that was a completely reasonable assumption.
After I came to this conclusion, I kind of just stopped thinking about it. I never ate a ton of Jell-O or marshmallows, but I would have gelatin occasionally. I would also be completely lying if I said that anytime I got within fifty yards of a campfire I didn’t stuff my food-hole full of s’mores. Because I do. And they’re delicious.
This lovely delusion I had set up for myself all came crashing down around me recently when I was over at my dad’s house. Somehow the subject of marshmallows came up, and my step-mom mentioned how my dad still wouldn’t eat them. I thought he was just being silly and set out to prove him wrong. I pulled up the Wikipedia article on gelatin and, uh, whoops.
Turns out food technology hasn’t advanced quite to the point I thought it had and I’ve been eating a substance “derived from the collagen inside animals’ skin and bones.” Oh. My. God. I don’t care if you eat meat or not. Doesn’t that sound disgusting? Collagen? Skin and bones? Blargh. That’s almost as bad as sweet potatoes.
I’m obviously disgusted by this, but at the same time, s’mores are delightful. So what do I do? Do I feign ignorance and load up my graham cracker, or do I take responsibility for a decision I didn’t make, but have lived by my entire life? I honestly don’t know the answer to that.
If I had to guess though, I’d say I’m done with Jell-O (it’s kind of creepy and gross anyway) and will double up my efforts to make sure I’m not eating anything that contains gelatin. While there are vegan marshmallows, they probably taste like butt and are definitely not available at most local grocery stores. What I can’t do, is say that I’ll never have another standard campfire marshmallow. I probably will, and I’ll probably feel guilty as hell. Thanks, dad.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on May 05, 2009 @ 12:07 EST5EDT
I knew about gelatin, but one thing that did shock me is the fact that 25% of granulated white sugar is filtered through charred cow bones (aka “natural charcoal”) to remove the color. I guess it’s not as bad, but still.
what about making your own marshmellows and trying agar agar instead of the gelatin? (I’d never heard of agar agar but there was a big discussion on a marshmellow recipe about how many people were freaked out by the gelatin and wonder if you could do it without – i don’t see where anyone had – but if you can replace it with a gelatinous substance from seaweed instead, that sounds like a good idea!