{"id":1002118,"date":"2026-09-30T19:44:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T17:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greentrinsic.com\/?p=1002118"},"modified":"2026-10-02T13:56:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T11:56:05","slug":"hidden-animal-ingredients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greentrinsic.com\/en\/hidden-animal-ingredients\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Animal Ingredients: These E Numbers Aren’t Vegan"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Does this sound familiar? You’re standing in the supermarket, you turn over a packet of fruit gums and read your way through an ingredients list that sounds more like a chemistry lesson than a sweet treat. Somewhere between the glucose syrup and the acidifier, an “E 120” or “E 904” pops up, and you wonder whether an animal was involved. That happened to me all the time when I first went vegan, and to be honest I was often surprised by where animal ingredients turn up: in the shiny coating on sweets, on the skin of fruit or in a vitamin D supplement. <\/p>\n

The good news is that you don’t need a chemistry degree to keep track. In this article I’ll show you what E numbers actually are, which of them are (almost) always animal-derived, where the answer is “it depends” and which apps make shopping a lot easier. It’s best to save the list straight away so you have it to hand on your next shopping trip. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What are E numbers, anyway?<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Behind every E number is a food additive that has been tested and approved in the EU. The numbers were introduced so that often unwieldy chemical names could be labelled consistently and in a way everyone can understand. The “E” is usually followed by a three-digit number that follows a fixed system: E 100 to E 180 are colours, for example, and E 200 to E 297 are preservatives. [1] <\/p>\n

Additives make food last longer, look more appetising, take on a certain texture or become easier to process. For a substance to be used at all, it has to be harmless to health and technologically necessary, and it must not mislead you when you shop. [1][2] Around 320 of these additives are currently approved in the EU. [3] <\/p>\n

So E numbers aren’t automatically a bad thing. Many of them even occur in nature, such as vitamin C, which is used as an antioxidant. [1] For us vegans, though, a completely different question is the interesting one: what is the substance actually made from? <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Why the ingredients list doesn't always tell you<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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This is where it gets tricky. So far, manufacturers don’t have to state whether additives, flavourings and added vitamins are of plant or animal origin. [4] On top of that, some substances don’t have to appear on the packet at all: additives that get into the product via an ingredient and no longer have any effect there, for example, or processing aids that are used during production and then removed again. A classic is gelatine, which binds the cloudy particles in juices and is then filtered out again. [4] <\/p>\n

And in case you’re wondering why the word “vegan” on a packet doesn’t always mean the same thing: there is no legally binding definition of it in Austria, in Germany or at EU level. [5] <\/p>\n

Another popular custom in many countries is lead pouring. In this tradition, people melt small pieces of lead and pour them into cold water to interpret the resulting shapes as omens for the year ahead. However, this playful ritual has an environmental downside: lead is a toxic heavy metal, and its extraction and processing pose serious ecological risks. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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These E numbers are (almost) always animal-derived<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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If you spot one of these additives on the ingredients list, you can assume that the product isn’t vegan.<\/p>\n