Beauty Without Cruelty

A Vegetarian Lifestyle is a guide to what is vegetarian and what is non-vegetarian in the Indian market. But it is more than a mere list of brands to shop for: it also contains important generic information on the ingredients and testing methods of the things that you buy, reading which will make you a more aware consumer.

Animal-derived ingredients are almost certain to have been obtained by a forceful imposition by humans upon animals. It is difficult to obtain most substances from animals' bodies without causing pain or harming them. Though most of us are aware of the fact that animals do not wish to part with their body materials that readily. e.g. to obtain milk, we inflict the pain of starvation on the calf, we do not consciously choose to use alternatives. This very lack of motivation coupled with the lack of informative material required to make a shift towards cruelty-free alternatives has inspired A Vegetarian Lifestyle.

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Related Laws

Labeling Laws

Act requiring ingredient-labeling of food products (This will be in form of a link)

	Name of Act:	Rule 32 of Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954
	Statement of Act:	Every package of food shall carry a label and unless otherwise provided in these rules, these shall be specified on every label:
		The name, trade name, or description of food contained in the package; The names of ingredients used in the product in descending order or their composition by weight or volume as the case may be:
		Provided that in case of artificial flavoring substances, the label may not declare chemical names of the flavors, but in the case of natural flavoring substances or nature-identical flavoring substances, the common name of flavors shall be mentioned on the label.

Law requiring special labeling of vegetarian food items

	Date of law :	16 May, 2001 (to come into force after six months from this date)
	Name of law :	Notification G.S.R. 358 (E) announcing Prevention of Food Adulteration (Amendment) Rules, 2001
	Amendments:	(i) Insertion of following new (third) proviso into Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955, Rule 32, clause (b):
		"Provided also that for all Vegetarian Food, a declaration to this effect shall be made by a symbol and the colour code so stipulated for this purpose to indicate that the product is Vegetarian Food. The symbol shall consist of a green colour filled circle, inside the square with green colour outline having side double the diameter of the circle, as indicated in clause (17) of sub-rule (ZZZ) of the rule 42".
		(ii) Insertion of following clause after clause 16 of Rule 42, sub-rule ZZZ:
		"Every package of Vegetarian Food shall bear the following symbol in green colour on the principal display panel just close in proximity to name or brand name of the Food, namely : ."

Law requiring special labeling of non-vegetarian food items

	Date of law :	4 April 2001 (to come into force after six months from this date)
	Name of law :	Notification G.S.R. 245 (E) announcing Prevention of Food Adulteration (Fourth Amendment) Rules, 2001
	Amendments:	(i) Insertion of following new (third) proviso into Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955, Rule 32, clause (b):
		"Provided also that when any article of food contains whole or part of any animal including birds, fresh water or marine animals or eggs or product of any animal origin, but not including milk or milk products, as an ingredient, a declaration to this effect shall be made by a symbol and colour code so stipulated for this purpose to indicate that the product is Non-Vegetarian Food. The symbol shall consist of a brown colour filled circle, inside the square with brown outline having side double the diameter of the circle, as indicated in clause (16) of sub rule (ZZZ) of rule 42".
		(ii) Insertion of following clause after clause 15 of Rule 42, sub-rule ZZZ:
		"Every package of Non-Vegetarian Food shall bear the following symbol on the principal display panel just close in proximity to name or brand name of the Food, namely : ."

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