The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Thursday May 17 2005

Britvic, the company that manufactures Tango, has asked us to point out that the fizzy orange drink does not contain fish gelatine or any other animal products, contrary to the claim made in the feature below.





1 Kellogg's Frosted Wheats

If anything is going to get your day off to a rip-roaring start, you can bet it's a beefy cereal breakfast. Look no further, then, than Kellogg's Frosted Wheats, which boast the added ingredient of beef gelatine. Its presence is apparently to ensure that the sugar sticks to the outside. Why can't they just use glue? (But not the kind made from boiled-down bits of horse, obviously.)

2 Tango Orange

There are few things quite so refreshing as a nice can of fishy orange pop. Thank heavens, then, for Tango, which not only boasts a tangy orange fizziness, but also the added magical ingredient of fish gelatine. There are several kinds of gelatine, which is a by-product of the slaughterhouse industry and made of protein from animal bones, cartilage, tendons and other tissues, such as pig skin. Fish gelatine is becoming increasingly popular because it sidesteps religious concerns that might be associated with other kinds of meaty gelatines. A vegetarian alternative would be agar-agar, which not only is kinder to the animals, but also has an amusing name. Fish gelatine is found in many squashes and fizzy drinks because it is a "carrier" for beta carotene. Irritatingly, because production aids do not have to be listed, the fish gelatine carrier never appears as an ingredient.

3 Sacla Classic pesto

The problem with all pesto is that it contains Parmesan, and, like our old friend the Mars bar, Parmesan is not made with vegetarian rennet, but the icky stuff out of calves' stomachs. There is no such thing as vegetarian Parmesan, though there are several cheeses that look and taste passably like it, such as Twinham Grange. Think of it like that Naomi Campbell lookalike who got into lots of nightclubs for free because she looked the spit of Naomi. Only with cheese.

4 Guinness

Guinness was the winner of this year's Vegetarian Society Imperfect World Award, for its lack of vegetarian-friendly credentials - like many cask ales and stouts, it is fined with isinglass. Isinglass is a form of collagen, and hails from the swimbladders of fish. It is used mainly to accelerate the clarification of wine and beer, and though little remains in the product when served, its involvement in the brewing process renders Guinness non-vegetarian. A veggie-friendly alternative would be Irish moss, used by an increasing number of microbreweries. Marble brewery in Manchester doesn't fine its beers at all, so they are veggie friendly.

5 Müller Light yoghurts

Many low-fat yoghurts are not suitable for vegetarians and Müller Light is no exception. The snag is it contains gelatine. Müller claims it is researching a vegetarian alternative, and several items in the range, including Müller Rice and Fruit Corners, are currently gelatine-free.

6 Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce

Anchovies are not native to Worcestershire. Nevertheless, they have somehow made it into Lea & Perrins famous sauce. The company has no intention of making a vegetarian interpretation of the sauce, since it is still made according to the original recipe from 1837, when fermented anchovy sauces were all the rage, apparently. Thankfully, there are vegetarian alternatives, notably Henderson's Relish, which is made in Sheffield and boasts many famous fans, including Sean Bean, Peter Stringfellow, Richard Hawley and Def Leppard's Rick Savage.

7 Smarties

Long may we have mocked those stroppy celebrities who insisted their lackeys pick out particular coloured Smarties in their dressing-room rider. But perhaps we were too quick to misinterpret their diva-like behaviour. Perchance they were merely making a political statement about the presence of E120 cochineal in Smarties and their American cousin M&Ms? E120 cochineal is produced by extracting the red body material from pregnant scale insects of the species Dactilopius coccus. Yes, wiggly critters died for your candy. The popularity of cochineal is rising once again following concern about synthetic colourings. Curiously, red Smarties do not contain cochineal, but the mauve ones do.

8 Snickers

It was bad enough, quite frankly, when it stopped being called Marathon. Now Snickers, along with the rest of its chocolaty brethren in the Mars family - Milky Way, Bounty, Mars bar, Galaxy, Twix and Maltesers among them - has stopped being suitable for vegetarian consumption. The problem is that the source of whey now used in a Snickers bar contains rennet. Nestlé's KitKat, the UK's bestselling chocolate bar, is also unsuitable for vegetarians.

9 Bovril

Like a fickle 14-year-old, Bovril turned vegetarian for about a year, then went back to the dark side and reintroduced beef extract. Rather than any new-found vegetarian gusto, the move to yeast extract in 2004 was largely triggered by concerns about beef consumption and BSE, which affected Bovril's export market. Once the beef export ban was lifted, the beefiness resumed. For non-meat- eating Bovril admirers, the company suggests Marmite.

And here's one thing you can eat

Fascinatingly, Walker's cheese and onion crisps are suitable for vegetarians, while their mature cheddar crisps are not. One might assume that all the space for onions is filled up with rennety non-vegetarian cheese powder, but in fact the presence of vegetarian cheese powder in the cheese and onion variety was something of a victory for the Vegetarian Society, which awarded the crisp with its Imperfect World prize in 2003, prompting Walker's to change its recipe. "People assume," says Chris Olivant of the Vegetarian Society, "that because most cheese on the shelves of British supermarkets is now vegetarian [90%, in fact], cheese flavouring in crisps will be too. But it's not".