Name: Non-vegan fruit.
Appearance: Vexingly, nearly indistinguishable from vegan fruit.
Hold on, isn’t all fruit vegan? Don’t be a plum. Of course it isn’t. Have you not heard of the female lac bug, who thrives in the forests of India and south-east Asia?
I rarely think of anything else. What’s she got to do with the story? She secretes a resin that is used to make shellac, which helps make lemons shiny.
But surely the lemon juice inside is still wholesomely vegan? Possibly, but lemon rind – which, as you know, is essential for perking up vegan risotto and other cruelty-free meals – isn’t, when it contains shellac.
Isn’t that taking the pith? Not at all. Tesco has come under fire for selling fruit that is not suitable for vegans, such as shiny lemons and limes. The supermarket is now reportedly changing its products in response to customers’ complaints.
Why does a lemon need to be shinier than it was when plucked from a sun-dappled tree and shipped to its dismal resting place in, say, the fruit aisle of a petrol station shop on the Peterborough ring road? Good question. Because, you’d think, of the planet-despoiling dictates of globalised late capitalism. And because, like easily beguiled magpies, we like shiny stuff.
What does Guardian food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe have to say about this? She noticed that a Pizza Express menu said a glass of Coke would only be vegan if served without lemon. “Wtf,” she tweeted, understandably. The restaurant replied that the wax on its lemons might contain shellac.
But I thought Coke was filled with all kinds of non-vegan yuck: brewers’ toenails, children’s tears, etc. Incredibly not, though most pizzas contain ingredients that irk vegetarians and vegans, such as rennet.
Which is? An organic substance mainly found in the lining of the stomachs of young ruminants – mainly calves, lambs or goats – which is commonly used to make cheese.
So, are oranges the only fruit for vegans? No. Tesco has also labelled its oranges “non-vegan” because they are treated with beeswax to keep the fruit fresher for longer. Beeswax, made from honeycomb, is also sometimes used to coat oranges, apples, pears and, most derangingly of all for vegan millennials, avocados.
What’s wrong with beeswax? Like honey, harvesting it can involve bees’ suffering, even death.
What if you tread on ants while harvesting courgettes – can vegans still use them to make ratatouille? Of course. Even vegans hate ants (only kidding).
Do say: Mind your beeswax.
Don’t say: I’ve trodden in stuff that tastes better than vegan cheese.
