Are these products tested on animals?
The soap I use - Olivella is from Italy and not tested on animals. Available from Carrefour.[/quote]
There are many brands to choose from, Italian, French, etc. so I guess if this is an EU requirement it will be there.[/quote]
Maybe the actual product was not tested on animals, but the product could be owned by a compnay that has no issues testing on what could have been your pet:
That’s about every product on supermarket’s shelf.
[quote=“Abacus”]
Myself also. The remaining issue I have is the heavy pesticide use on fruits and veggies. Quite a few of my favorites require peeling so that helps but there are a few that can only be washed. [/quote]
i read somewhere that you can wash toxins off the skin of most fruits/veggies by soaking them in vinegar for 10 mins? true?
It is hard enough in a western country, but Taiwan or Asia - animal testing is basically not in anyone’s mindset.
A big problem is China’s insistence that any product introduced there MUST be tested on animals before it can be on the shelves, even if it has been sold for years in say the EU with no threat to humans.
But, as far as I know, I don’t buy from any of those companies. Gillette and 3M were the last ones until I was informed. And you can add Mars to that list.
But I would hedge a bet that the Taiwanese detergent I buy has been tested on animals.
At least I am trying.
Are these products tested on animals?
The soap I use - Olivella is from Italy and not tested on animals. Available from Carrefour.[/quote]
There are many brands to choose from, Italian, French, etc. so I guess if this is an EU requirement it will be there.[/quote]
Maybe the actual product was not tested on animals, but the product could be owned by a compnay that has no issues testing on what could have been your pet:
[/quote]
True, but Taiho’s brands are not run of the mill multinationals, but mostly organic producers. they hold themselves accountable to a whole different crowd.
It is hard enough in a western country, but Taiwan or Asia - animal testing is basically not in anyone’s mindset.
A big problem is China’s insistence that any product introduced there MUST be tested on animals before it can be on the shelves, even if it has been sold for years in say the EU with no threat to humans.
But, as far as I know, I don’t buy from any of those companies. Gillette and 3M were the last ones until I was informed. And you can add Mars to that list.
But I would hedge a bet that the Taiwanese detergent I buy has been tested on animals.
At least I am trying.[/quote]
You think they test it? They copy formulas from international brands … trail and error.
IIRC trans fats, which are [a contaminant of] artificially modified [hydrogenated] fats resistant to oxidation, and have been known to be dangerous for a long time, are legal just about everywhere except Holland, and are so pervasive in the US diet that the [strike]surgeon-general[/strike] [National Academy of Sciences] has determined that it would not be “practical” to avoid them.
I disagree that it’s impractical to avoid them. To avoid trans fats, simply limit your intake of full-fat dairy and fatty meats, and avoid all processed foods (cookies, crackers and other baked and fried goods (donuts, chips, french fries), margarine and shortenings (any flaky pastries and pie crusts) including microwave popcorn, frozen waffles, coffee creamer and instant coffee with creamer in it, as well as prepared mixes for cakes, biscuits, muffins, waffles etc. Avoid krap like Krispy Kreme. Make your own, from scratch. Skip the fried crap. Use a hot air popper. Brew your own coffee. It’s not rocket science.
Avoid crap, period. I agree. Fried, processed, etc.
But leave sour cream out of this list!
I’ve edited-in some corrections to my post above, though I havn’t gone back and looked up sources.
Why would “full-fat dairy and fatty meats” have trans, (or hydrogenated) fats, which are generally a feature of processed food? I suppose its possible that trans/hydrogenated fats in the animals diet would get carried over.
Apart from that I agree that its possible, but rather difficult for the “average” American, which may have been what the NAS had in mind.
(When I have time I’ll see if I can track down the source for that NAS quote, which was in a ppt I used in class a few years ago.)
It’s also rather difficult here, especially if you don’t cook much, which many people don’t, though they may be re-examining that in the light of recent events.
My point was that this crap is completely legal (almost) worldwide, and hard to avoid, despite the acknowledged risks. Presumably that can be attributed that to the power of the processed food lobby.
Some animal fats are not that bad.
[quote=“Ducked”]
My point was that this crap is completely legal (almost) worldwide, and hard to avoid, despite the acknowledged risks. Presumably that can be attributed that to the power of the processed food lobby.[/quote]
usually it’s labeled properly so if you read the label you can avoid it. but in the case of gutter oil you don’t know that it’s in there.
Except that milk fat (to some extent) and animal fat (to the largest extent) is not made of trans fatty acids but saturated fatty acids, so those foods should not be on THIS list. 
[quote=“Wiki”]A type of trans fat occurs naturally in the milk and body fat of ruminants (such as cattle and sheep) at a level of 2–5% of total fat.[43] Natural trans fats, which include conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and vaccenic acid, originate in the rumen of these animals…
Animal-based fats were once the only trans fats consumed, but by far the largest amount of trans fat consumed today is created by the processed food industry as a side effect of partially hydrogenating unsaturated plant fats (generally vegetable oils).[/quote]
More from Wikipedia (as a staryt for further research):
and
and also this:
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat
In other words, at the very least we can say that there is no need to worry about milk and meat as sources of trans fat (whatever other concerns one may have about those foods is a different matter).
There was a time when margarine and vegetable shortenings were considered “healthy”. Now it turns out butter and lard is better because they have no trans fat while margarine and vegetable shortenings were all trans fat.
In the paranoid department, last night I was flipping news channels. they were talking about the return of Ting Hsin a few years ago -when they had a special policy to attract companies that had, ehem, “left” for Mainland China back to Taiwan. The original purpose was to bnring back those capitals back to Taiwan. Well, apparently the Wei clan managed to buy the new factory land in Sanchong, haozai penthouses in Renai’s most expensive areas and other stuff, all only investing 1% of their capital, getting 99% from the generous banks and then re-routed that money to overseas accounts in the Caribbean… BDR, BTR something like that they called this scheme, where the bank lends the money on the strength of the stock that the Wei company’s bought from the developing companies with the money lent from the banks… something like that. bottom line is that Taiwan never saw a penny of the Wei family’s money and even more so, they siphoned funds given here to their accounts abroad, free of taxes and far from the hand of the Law.
Right after this a bunch on insurance ads played. it dawned of me on the perfect cycle: you buy insurance because you fear cancer from all the crap you are eating/breathing/drinking. The major investors in housing developments and construction companies are the insurance companies -way too much money sitting idle. the banks lend money to people who manipulate the stock and housing markets. Your money. You buy overpriced houses and pay through the nose in insurance to live long enough to work those debts. The people who manipulate the stocks/real estate keep on producing crap to make you sicker… Brilliant…
It’s difficult for the average American because:
a) healthy food costs more than processed crap
b) despite trans-fats being banned in Denmark for a decade and written on all our food ingredients labels here in Taiwan for at least six(!!!) years, food manufacturers in the US aren’t forced to write trans-fat content on their food packages, so the average consumer has no clue what’s in the package.
I noticed in recent years that food manufacturers in the UK have cleverly dropped the word “hydrogenated” from all descriptions of vegetable oils on ingredient lists. I doubt very much that it’s because they don’t actually use the process, and highly suspect it’s because they’re not legally obliged to write the word and “vegetable oils” is sufficient. I guess the public were wising up to the idea of trans-fats and so companies bravely moved to protect their profits by eliminating key words from packaging rather than finding alternatives to poisoning their customers.
Somebody please have a look at that article on today’s cover of China Times. It has the words gutter oil - Agent Orange -vegetables … and I do not think they are fear mongering… I do not dare to finish reading…
Yeah, I saw that too. Awesome.