Jordan writes:
Recently, I discovered that many of Rice-a-roni’s products, even the one’s I assumed to be vegetarian friendly, had meat byproducts in them. Granted, I can expect “Chicken and Broccoli” to have meat byproducts, but I’ve come to discover almost all of them do. Nearly all contain Chicken Fat. I wrote Rice-A-Roni a complaint, which can be found below, with there extremely helpful response! I was very pleased with their Customer Relations department for the time being. They wrote they’d send me a few coupons and such to try out their Kosher line, which can be vegetarian friendly. I just received the coupons in the mail. I opened the enveloped, with three coupons for Quaker Oats products. Here’s the irony. They decided it’d be friendly of them to send a recipe that I could try out with their products. What recipe is sent, do you ask. A recipe for Quaker Oats “Prize-Winning Meatloaf.”
Here is the original complaint Jordan sent Rice-A-Roni:
I recently became aware of your new Natures Way Rice-A-Roni product line. I was pleased with this because of the high reliance upon artificial preservatives in modern foods. Being a vegetarian, Ive never bought the meat flavored rice-a-roni products, and have stuck with items such as mexican style or herbs and butter. The non-meat products were my targeted food groups. I never bothered for a moment to look and see if these contained meat or meat byproducts, until I bought the Natures Way: Italian Cheese and Herbs. Now, I find that this product and the old products I was buying all contain Chicken Fat. Your guidelines specifically request no product suggestion, so I will say that I have an extreme product frustration. As an off-campus college student, I had been eating these for lunches many days of the week. I cannot in good moral conscience continue to eat any of these products until they dont have meat byproducts. If I was seeking the chicken broccoli, beef, or any meat product, I would expect meat. When I buy the others, meat is an extreme distaste, one that has lost me as a customer until chicken fat is removed from the ingredients list.
Here was their response:
RE: Rice-A-Roni Nature’s Way Italian Cheese and Herb , REF.# 026325336AJordan:
We’re so sorry that the presence of chicken fat in Rice-A-Roni causes you some concern. We have shared your comments with our Product Development Team for consideration in the future.
We wanted to take this opportunity to tell you about another line of pasta and rice dishes called Near East. While not labeled specifically for vegetarians, the products are labeled for Kosher certification. Some vegetarians find the Kosher labeling helpful in keeping to their dietary preferences.
Kosher Law is based on the Jewish book of the Torah, and precludes the use of meat and dairy products in the same meal. While a product may contain meat and also be Kosher, it must be labeled as containing meat products to prevent accidentally being mixed with dairy. Below is guide to some symbols you can watch for on our packages of Near East.
* The letter “U” enclosed in a circle on the front of a product is the symbol of the Orthodox Union of Jewish Congregations and indicates the product is Kosher. If it appears by itself, the product contains neither meat nor dairy as defined by Kosher Law.
* If a letter “M” is beside or underneath the circled U, it means that some part of the product contains meat.
* If a letter “D” is beside or underneath the circled U, it means that some part of the product contains dairy.
If you would like to learn more about our Near East products, please visit: http://www.neareast.com.
We hope this information is helpful, Jordan. A coupon to try Near East has been sent to you and should arrive within 7-10 business days. We hope you will find a new product to enjoy.
Jennifer
Quaker Consumer Response
That is the kind of customer service that happens when reps are just looking for keywords and then they print off a pre-formulated reply selected from a drop-down menu and include the standard “we’re sorry” package without thinking about what they’re doing. Jordan’s bungled encounter no doubt means Quaker Oats products now leave him with a a bad taste in his mouth. Sending a meatloaf recipe to a vegetarian, that is some delicious irony right there.
(Photo: basykes)
More From Consumerist
-
Chicken Processing Plant Worker: I Will Never Eat Fast Food Nuggets Again
-
Here Are This Year’s Most Unhealthy Restaurant Dishes (Some Of Which Sound Pretty Good)
-
Red Lobster: For The Seafood-Hating Cheapskate In Your Group
-
Comment Of The Day: Bacon Is A Vegetable
-
Don’t Worry, The Caterpillar You Found In Your Dinner Is Totally Safe To Eat
@ludwigk:
Actually Egg is Parve. So Vegans have to watch out for that fact. I checked the label of that product and chicken fat is pretty prominent, but this guy may be new to being a vegetarian. Even if it doesn’t say it on the label, a certain amount of any product is allowed in as “natural flavor”. Point in fact, Carmine: [en.wikipedia.org]
The suggestion by Rice-A-Roni was very helpful because Kosher products have higher requirements regarding ingredient contents. The meat loaf recipe on the surface is funny, but just because he is a vegetarian doesn’t mean he may have guests that aren’t. I often cook meals that I wouldn’t eat because of dietary requirements, while I want my guests to enjoy them.
@ludwigk: “Food manufactures will inject beef into a donut if it’ll makes people eat more of it.”
“Hi, Ludwig?
Dunkin Donuts here…”
@Super1984:
That’d be the vegetarians. That goes double for the vegans.
@Jasmo: “If you are a vegetarian and still eating processed crap like rice-a-roni, you’re missing the point.”
No, the point is to not eat meat if you are a vegetarian. There are environmental, animal rights (gasp yes!), social justice AND health reasons not to eat meat. I don’t eat meat for all of these reasons, but I still have been known to eat fast food french fries, even though I try to be healthy, and I am glad to know that Burger King fries are vegetarian. Plenty of people who eat meat try to eat healthy diets and still will eat Pasta-Roni (ew) or fries at some point.
Why he didn’t read the label is beyond me. Any vegetarian knows random foods like Starbursts and even many brands of Vegetable Soup contain meat byproducts and that you always have to check the label. He should have just asked them to remove the chicken fat, but it sounds like they have their “Near East” line of products to serve as the more veggie-friendly option.
@KarmaChameleon: Why bother starting a post saying you don’t have a problem with vegetarians when you go on to list all the reasons you do have problems with them? Please don’t insult vegans the way you do either. Plenty of them have much healthier diets than we could even dream of. Not eating milk and eggs does not make one a crazy fundamentalist!
@balthisar: “The Janes.” Like some army of vegan brunette housewives. That’s kinda cute. It’s spelled Jain.
Eat whatever you want, folks. It’s your body.
I feel bad that Rice A Roni responded with a meatloaf recipe, but Jordan really should have been reading labels much more carefully. If the box was labeled “vegetarian”, then it would be a different issue. There’s no reason to assume that any product is vegetarian-friendly unless it specifically states so on the label. I’m allergic to wheat and gluten, and I religiously read every label on every food item I put into my mouth, even weird things that one wouldn’t think there would be anything in, like sour cream. At least Jordan’s vegetarianism doesn’t trigger a medical issue. If it means that much to him/her, he/she needs to step it up when it comes to policiing what he/she eats. My two cents.
@ludwigk: Food manufactures will inject beef into a donut if it’ll makes people eat more of it.
Mmmm… beef-flavored donuts…
@sporks:
I think the bashing is because of the self-righteous tone he takes with the manufacturer, when the fault lies with him for not having taken the time to read the labels. The company wasn’t deceptive. It has product lines aimed at vegetarians, but this product is not one of them. This is an ordinary grocery product and its ingredients aren’t unusual, and while they are all listed on the back, they don’t need to be highlighted on the front because the target market isn’t freaking out about the presence of ordinary ingredients like salt, fat, chicken broth, wheat, eggs, nut oil, etc. Individuals who need to avoid certain ingredients will look at labels carefully to make sure the forbidden ingredient isn’t there.
Jason did not look at the label at all, apparently, and it’s pretty sanctimonious of him to preach afterwards how he can’t “in good moral conscience” keep eating Rice-a-Roni. They sent him a very personalized, thoughtful response that clearly showed someone had read his letter and considered his remarks, which goes above and beyond most corporations’ letters of this nature, and it’s even more impressive when you think how smug he was in his letter to them. If their preprinted list of recipes had one that was not vegetarian-appropriate, well, really, should they have ordered a new print run of promotional brochures just for this whiner?
The letter is excellent and should help Jordan make better informed choices in the future; the incident with the recipe is unfortunate but should not be taken personally.
I do have a suggestion for the student who doesn’t want to haul around a backpack of wilted leaves for sustenance: lentils (especially red), bulgur, spices. Also useful for backpackers, these foods are lightweight and require minimal cooking time. Add boiling water (electric teapot) to bulgur, and 7 minutes later you can throw in some spices and chopped veggies to have a tasty meal. Quick, cheap, and with protein and fiber you won’t find in rice-a-roni.
I have to agree. I think Jordan is just be self-righteous and self-absorbed. First he outright demands that the company change their recipe just for his sake (because he couldn’t in good moral conscience continue to be a customer as long as they had meat in their products) and then, after receiving the meatloaf recipe, acts like his “lifestyle choice” as a vegetarian has been attacked. This sounds like one of those people who, short of having meat outlawed, would insist that a picture of the animal who was slaughtered for your meal be plastered across the front of any product that contained meat.
i really don’t understand why people seem to have such disdain and (almost) hatred towards vegetarians. i’ve been vegetarian for 5 & 1/2 years now thought i rarely mention it to people because i fear that i’ll get one of those “what the hell is wrong with you?! meat is so delicious & wonderful & amazing!!!!!!” comments. i don’t make fun of you or look down on you because you’ve made a personal choice to eat meat so please don’t do it to me.
“…I assumed…”
Oh, look – I think I found the problem.
“The strictest interpretation of the laws of Kashrut require that you know the specific religious beliefs of your butcher, you know him personally, and trust his judgment.”
When I was in a “ultra-Orthodox” (whatever the hell that means) yeshiva, one of my rebbeim was like that – in fact, he slaughtered his own cow, then froze the whole damn thing in his basement and ate it over six months. Believe me, he was the singular example. Everyone else in that place most _certainly_ trusted the local kashrus authority, the OU, or the known-good authorities (kof-k, etc.).
Anyways, yes, vegetarians, kosher symbols are your friend for spotting dairy and meat products. Just remember that vegetarian != vegan.
Soilent Green is people?
@radleyas: really? See, if you do a cursory survey of just this thread, the vast majority of sanctimony and judgment is coming from the peaople opposed to vegetarianism/veganism, rather than from the vegetarians or vegans. Lemme turn around your first post, and see how it sounds in your ears:
“I’m probably the only one who thinks that his serves that self-righteous carnivore right … Eat vegan. Vegetables gave us humans our big brains. Let us not try to reverse the process.”
Now imagine that I pop into every Consumerist thread and throw that at you every time there’s a post about meat-eaters getting shortchanged by the food economy (because we know that that happens way more than it does to vegetarians and vegans). Gets tiresome, doesn’t it?
I stopped eating meat when I was 11; I stopped eating animal products at all when I was 23, which was almost seven years ago. In those almost twenty years, I can count on one hand the times that the response to my revealed dietary choices consisted simply of “oh, good for you,” and nothing more. Not once have I shoved pamphlets in anybody’s face, or gotten self-righteous about my choices. Notice, for example, that in all of this I haven’t once claimed that my diet is somehow superior to yours?
Now, why don’t you try doing the same, and quite trolling.
@rdldr1:
FYI – Beer is not always vegetarian, because some beers use finings in the beer making process, such as:
isinglass (made from the dried swim bladders of sturgeons, used a bunch in British brewing.); and
gelatin (made from animal hooves, skin, and connective tissues).
@Plorry: There is actually vegetarian fish sauce made without fish. Better places make their vegetarian food with it — although your place may not.
Interestingly, in SE Asia, lots of people go on vegetarian kicks (for a day a week, say) to improve their karma. I’ve found that they don’t consider fish sauce to be non-vegetarian (or at least the older generations don’t), and they will eat it during the veg periods. So maybe the restaurant owners think this way, too. Seems like younger people in SE Asia and Americans (of both Asian and non-Asian heritage) are the most common proponents of the truly vegetarian fish sauce.
@KarmaChameleon: I’m also iron-deficient anemic, and an omnivore (the free-range only kind). But I could definitely see being able to work with a pescetarian diet. For me, I get a balance of heme and non-heme iron sources, which includes lots of natto, miso, lentils, beans, etc. Plus, you can get a lot of heme sources that are, if not vegeatarian friendly, at least pescetarian friendly (mussels, oysters, clams). And of course lots of vitamin C and supplements. And I use an iron skillet (haha, which is probably just a superstition, but it makes me feel like I’m getting more iron, at least!).
@nrwfos: Wow, and I thought I had it hard. I’m glad that they found something that works for you! Does it increase your body’s stores (in like your marrow or something)? I wonder if it’s only for extreme cases?
If God didn’t want us to eat animals, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat.
Who actually eats Rice-A-Roni? I’m betting it’s the same people who shop at Best Buy.
I think I’ll go enjoy a big juicy T-bone now.
@suburbancowboy: MSG is delicious.
Perhaps Jordan should actually, oh I don’t know, take some personal responsibility and READ INGREDIENT LABELS if you have dietary restrictions!? What a novel idea.
I’m lactose-intolerant and I NEVER “assume” something is lactose-free. And, even if I do pick something out that has lactose in it, I always think “Duh. That was dumb, now I wasted $X”, not “OMG! Damn you, Company X! I deserve recompense”
I dont think people are attacking generic vegitarianism in this thread. I think they are attacking the specific vegitarian, who doesn’t realize that processed food might have meat products in it, and when the company wrote them a very thoughtful letter complained about it.
Not to mention that the recipe sent to them was printed on a coupon for them to try the vegitarian product.
There is no basis for complain here – the person who is complaining is being insane, and making other vegitarians look bad.
@snwbrder0721: Just to let you know, your vegetarian diet isn’t innocent in all this either. Do you know how much corn in this country is irrigated? Do you know how much water a corn crop takes? Do you know that alot of corn is irrigated via Center Pivot irrigation which tosses TONS of water into the atmosphere? Do you know how much fuel it takes to plant, harvest, and then process corn, other grains, and vegetables? And unless you buy organic everything (and organic vegetables can be grown with composted manure as fertilizer) Those grains fruits and vegetables have most likely had chemicals applied to them which further uses more water and fuel.
Unless everything you eat is grown in your own personal garden out back of your house. I’m just going to leave you with “people in glass houses”
Meat didn’t give us bigger brains! Shaping tools and the ability to use fire did!
Here, at Scientific American and also in the Dec 2007 issue.
@MrEvil: “Do you know how much corn in this country is irrigated? Do you know how much water a corn crop takes?” — A lot. Of course, most of that (~60%) becomes feedstock and only a single-digit percentage is actually consumed as food. Seems to me most of the environmental problems associated with corn would be eliminated not by cutting out corn from one’s diet but by cutting out meat.
I was a vegetarian for years, because I never much liked meat. One thing that started to bother me though was the arbitrary where-do-you-draw-the-line nature of vegetarianism (honey? byproducts in small amounts? rennet?) and I realized that I don’t actually care, it just becomes like a game to avoid a trace of a trace of something. When you open your mouth, you may eat a bug! Not that I care if anyone is vegetarian. I have never met an obnoxious vegetarian, but I have read a lot of obnoxious vegetarian magazines and cookbooks. One thing that never seems to be addressed is that there is a spetrum: If people would eat less meat, and buy local, grass-fed organic meat, the planet and animals would be better off, and we would get better nutrition without GMOs and antibiotics.
@MikeHerbst: Just curious, what intestinal flora are you talking about specifically. I’m not aware of any bacteria that are involved in the breakdown of meat in the human body, wondering if i’m wrong. I think the real problem for vegetarians and eating meat is being able to process all the pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and hormones that come with mass produced meat.
@snwbrder0721: Your rant is spot on. If the meat industry produced an organic, free range, low environmental impact product I MIGHT consider going back to eating it… but not going to happen. Meh, whatever, my food tastes better.
@sporks:
Too right. The only vegetarians who are annoying are the PETAphiles who think they have a right to tell other people what to eat.
Jordan isn’t that sort, although as some have pointed out, he did make a mistake not reading the label. Besides which, who can’t make their own rice pilaf, stuffing and other like foods? Making vegetarian versions of dishes is easy if one has basic competence in the kitchen.
No, I am not a vegetarian, though I only eat meat about five days per week. Nor am I giving up meat, either; I eat it when I want it.
@eggplantparm:
Since you asked, I’ll admit that “flora” isn’t really the right term.
As far as I understand it (not an MD, but have several in the family), there are pancreatic enzymes that break down proteins into various shapes of polypeptides. In a stable digestive system these enzymes only exist in the type and quantity that are typically needed. A sudden anomalous infusion of protein (even vegetable protein, but especially protein molecule shapes not normally encountered) can lead to an imbalance that leads to the presence of un- or partially-converted protein and amino-acid strings that can trigger vomiting or diarrhea.
The typical recommendation is for a “gradual” conversion whenever adding or changing protein sources. We’re revisiting this in our household because we hope to be pregnant soon, and apparently its recommended during pregnancy to limit soy proteins, which is currently the majority of wifey’s protein intake, aside from fish (which needs to be limited due to other factors).
@KJones:
Too right. The only vegetarians who are annoying are the PETAphiles who think they have a right to tell other people what to eat.
Round my house, we call these “Militant Vegetarians”.
mmmmmm donuts@ludwigk:
I know it’s hard, but all of us vegetarians out there need to gain a little appreciation to cook and prepare our own foods… I know that sometimes our lifestyle does not permit for us to cook everything ourselves, but we should encourage cooking ourselves using the freshest products – those without labels, like tomatoes, lettuces, potatoes, broccoli, etc.
We need to be extremely careful. I just don’t get why people are not forthcoming when us vegetarians ask about how something is prepared… I have learned to ask in a tone demonstrating interest in the cooking and preparation, and most meat-eaters will proudly tell you about the bacon, broths, ham, hamhocks, smoked turkey legs, and other meat ingredients in their dishes.
I suggest you visit [karmafreecooking.wordpress.com] if any of you’re interested in learning new easy and delicious recipes you can make and avoid all the heart-ache or dealing with meat-eaters who apparently feel threatened by our lifestyle choice.
I don’t ever try to make anyone vegetarian… so I don’t understand why most meat-eaters want us to eat meat???
Irony… it’s whats for breakfast.
“I [ass]umed”
@SpiderJerusalem:
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a CRASS symbol!
It never ceases to amaze me that all the ‘Vegetarians’ of the world complain that everyone else should conform to their dietary choices and inform them of everything in a box of whatever.
If you are ingesting crap from a box like RR then how committed to your self-imposed dietary law can you be?
I view the whole vegetarian thing as more of a political statement coupled with a little ‘look at me’; than about the food anyway: usually backed by the blind acceptance of the sacred words of Guru Gore that Global Warming is caused by man.
Different strokes for Socialist folks: I can say is I hope that you did not lick that envelope closed when you send your compliant letter. Some poor dead animals bones formed the base of that dry adhesive.
Bottom line, quoting Arthur Lange, “WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”