Sunday, June 8, 2014

Read the label, don't pay for the label

As I mention in my post, Help! My kid has gone vegan!, I love making big family meals even when dealing with complicated food preferences.  (Maybe even more, since I also enjoy a challenge.)  I have two recipes in mind to make for my son and his wife when they visit, my grandmother's Three-Bean Salad (recipe to come soon) and Ree Drummond's Burgundy Mushrooms.  Both call for Worcestershire Sauce, which surprisingly is not vegan, since most contain anchovies.

I took a look at Trader Joe's, and was surprised not to find it there.  My Facebook friends had helpful suggestions for stores that might carry it, as well as mail-order Worcestershire labeled as vegan.  Since Whole Foods and PCC have yet to open in my middle-class suburb, I hadn't made the trek yet to the wealthier neighborhoods.  But the mail-order bottles were way north of $5, with none of them on Amazon Prime.  

So I started checking our local stores, including Fred Meyer, a chain of grocery/department stores in the Pacific Northwest.   I scoured the organic/vegan/specialty aisle and found a few vegan items, some by the manufacturers recommended to me, but no Worcestershire sauce.  So I went to the Worcesterhire Sauce aisle.  Nothing was labeled "vegan."  However, I read the ingredients on the labels.  Two did not contain anything I recognized as animal products.

The Kroger (store brand) bottle was $1.59 for 10 ounces.  Another was labeled "Louisiana Worcestershire Sauce," but it was actually manufactured in Washington State by Cornet Bay.  The cost was $2.29 for 6 ounces.  I confirmed on a vegan Q&A board that the Kroger is vegan; the Cornet Bay has the same ingredients, but I have sent a message to the manufacturer to confirm.  

The moral of the story:  Don't pay for something labeled "vegan."  Just read the label.  You might save some money.

(Reviews and recipes for the "vegan" Worcestershire sauces to come.) 

No comments:

Post a Comment