Reading labels and seeing what ingredients are listed in a food product is how to figure out if it's vegan. Unfortunately you can't assume that if it should be vegan, it will be. You will discover many traps to that rule - like that there's milk powder in everything - and may even find yourself being grossed out by the very un-veg products in your veg-looking groceries.

What to look for on the label

Labels in Australia usually show when an ingredient is derived from milk, and usually any meat ingredients will be obvious. But there are some trickier words that show up too. Watch out for:

• Casein(e) - cows milk
• Gelatin(e) - animal skin, ligaments, bones and sinews
• Glycerin/glycerol - animal fat
• Isinglass - fish bladders
• Lactose - mammal milk
• Lecithin - eggs, milk
• Rennet - calf stomack
• Tallow - beef fat
• Whey - cow's milk

Because sometimes there are vegan alternatives to these, it can be hard when reading the labels to really know what is and isn't vegan. For example, there is a soy lecithin as well as the animal-derived variety. If it's not marked on the label whether it comes from soy or animals, the only way to know is to contact the manufacturer - or just avoid it altogether.

Other things to look out for include food additives (E numbers!), which might not be vegan. For example, if 120 appears on the ingredients list, you can be sure it's not vegan (120 is carmine acid, which comes from the crushed carcasses of cochineal insects). Other non-vegan numbers include 325, 329, 542, 901, and 904. Other additives can be problematic because, like ingredients, they may come from animal or synthetic sources. Again, if it's not listed the only way to find out is to ring the manufacturer.

Aduki publishes a book called Veg*n Shopper: an essential pocket reference that lists all these numbers and what sources they are derived from. There are also guides on the internet to these kinds of things. It can be a pain whipping out a notebook and checking stuff in supermarkets, but after a while you get quicker at it and you also get to know what stuff is vegan and what isn't!

Although it seems daunting, you'll quickly get into the swing of reading labels and it will become easier as time goes on. To be honest, I'm still not a great label-reader. I generally re-use brands that I know are vegan, checking their labels every now and then to make sure no non-veg ingredients have snuck in. And I rely on my vegan friends and fellow bloggers to inform me of new and exciting additions to my vegan shopping.

But everything is non-vegan!

Yeah, it can feel like that. If you eat a lot of processed foods then it can be a big shock to find that the majority of packaged goods in Australia are non-vegan. But there is a lot that is vegan, and it's often the healthier stuff that you should be going for anyway. Sure, you'll no longer be eating 90% of things from the biscuit aisle, but there are mainstream-brand biscuits available, and options in the health food aisle, and home-made is much better for you anyway! Ditto packet soups, crisps, confectionery, frozen foods, dips, sauces...

Someone asked me once if it made shopping boring or if I missed the freedom of choice, and I answered honestly... no. I like that when I walk into a supermarket, I don't want to eat three quarters of the stuff in there - natural, unprocessed, unpackaged food is so much more wholesome and tasty than processed stuff - and I like that packaged foods are no longer such a temptation. Suitable for vegetarians Sometimes a label will say 'suitable for vegetarians' or, more rarely, 'suitable for vegans' on it. Hooray! Other times it will say 'no animal derivatives'. Hooray again! I've noticed this kind of labelling getting more common over the past few years. There is also a vegan logo that is sometimes used on packaging:

May contain traces of...

If a label says it may contain traces of milk, it means that the food was manufactured in a factory that also manufactures milk products. Although equipment is cleaned, there is a risk that trace elements of milk will get into the food. (Vegan blogger Miss T does a good roundup of the regulations around this and what it all means in Australia.) Practically, these foods are vegan.

Image by m kasahara.

This article is adapted from a series called How to be vegan, which you can find at www.lisadempster.com.au.