Kosher items are not required to have a circled K. Some companies voluntarily have their products certified as Kosher, by a private certifying company, that inspects the manufacturing facility and the process, and whose reputation is trusted. Much like the way, in information technology, a certificate authority company such as Verisign, is trusted to declare another company’s encryption method to be Legit. One company that does this is the Orthodox Union. Acc to what I understand, they charge quite a bit for this service. I seem to recall seeing the Vegan Society having somewhat recently begun to offer a similar service, but a more recent search of their web sites turns up nothing.

The OU is reputed to do a good job, and reputed to be trustworthy.

I believe it would be good to have a private company to do this, for vegan and vegetarian products, similar to the way the Orthodox Union does it for Kosher products. And distinguish between purely vegetable products, and those which may also contain dairy, or eggs. However rather than being trained only in vegan concepts, it would seem to me that such a company should have vegan or vegetarian chemists and chemical engineers, as distinguishing between animal, vegetable, and mineral materials, contained in very complex commercial products, can requre quite a lot of knowledge.

Small organizations like the Earthly Origin of Commerical Materials Educational Org are attempting to accumulate and dessminate quality, reliable information, in regard to complex commercial materials, both food materials, and non-food, but have only done so to a small degree. This is my personal baby that I would like to see blossom.

thanks

So what’s the percentage of Hindus in India who are vegetarians.. yes! i want a scholarly pointer to some information on this topic.

The survey of food habits in India is here

Those who study Indian culture have often wondered if the image of India as a predominantly vegetarian country is correct. Market analysts want to know about the new eating habits of the Indian middle class. Economists think of food as the measure of well-being. Despite such widespread interest, there have been very few attempts to study the food habits of the Indian population. The Hindu -CNN-IBN State of the Nation Survey is one of the few such attempts. The poll, conducted between August 1 and 6, is based on interviews with 14,680 respondents, spread across 883 villages and urban areas in 19 States.

..

The findings show that only 31 per cent of Indians are vegetarians. The figure is 21 per cent for families (with all vegetarian members). Another nine per cent of the population is `eggetarian,’ or vegetarians who eat eggs.

Wow, my guess of 70% (non-veg) hits the mark.. Another myth that the people in the south are vegetarians goes for a toss..

As expected, the lowest proportion of vegetarian families are in coastal States such as Kerala (two per cent), Tamil Nadu (eight per cent), Andhra Pradesh (four per cent), Orissa (eight per cent) and Bengal (three per cent).

In addition to halal, kosher, and various other animal slaughter rituals that have been devised by people/God, there is another community that practices some Tender Loving Care when it comes to meat: The Miller Amish Country Poultry where chickens are “Amish grown, in the old traditional Amish Way”.

According to the pamphlet, Amish farmers are “peace loving folks who are extremely community minded and express love and concern for each other, so it’s natural that they also treat their chickens with tender care… Amish farms have no electricity. Evening lights are provided with kerosene lanterns or gas lamps“. Here is the way the Amish Growers deal with their chickens:

From Egg to Table Our chicks are hatched at our own hatchery in Goshen, Indiana and placed primarily on Amish farms. The birds are raised inside naturally ventilated, curtain sided houses, and are free to roam on open floors which is in stark contrast to egg laying chickens that spend their lives in cages. Many of our farmers still hand feed the chickens. The chickens are then taken to the Orland processing plant where the birds are processed on one of the most sophisticated automated lines in the country while maintaining our superior quality by hand packing and grading.

For further information, call 1-800-532-4186

Blessings in disguise !!