Are all cashew nuts vegan? 14 November 2020 at 9:27PM edited 15 November 2020 at 7:31AM in Health & beauty MoneySaving 14 replies 456 views

mug51

Hi
This might be a stupid question
I'm not vegan myself, but would like to make something vegan for someone. 
I need cashew nuts, so browsing the internet for cashews in ASDA, Tesco etc. I find cashew nuts that state 'Suitable for Vegetarians.' on the packaging.  Are these also suitable for vegans?  I'm thinking yes they are but why don't they say vegan too.
I'm guessing anything vegan is always vegetarian but not all vegetarian is vegan.
https://groceries.asda.com/product/raw-nuts/asda-cashews/1000003091778

Thanks in advance.

MalMonroe

Yes they are. I also have some friends who are vegan and they use cashews in their cooking and for snacks, too.  

You could always check with the person you're catering for. Not everyone likes cashews and of course, you have to be very careful in case people have allergies to nuts. 

mug51

Thank you.  I had a feeling they were.
I'm sure they don't have but allergies but I will double check.

Toothsmith

Cashews probably are - but it's not as silly a question as it first seems. 

There was something a few months ago about avocado. Anyone would think anything that just 'grows' would be vegan, but with avocados, apparently, there are circumstances where captive (hive) bees are used in their pollination. Thus making them not 'vegan-friendly'.

Interesting article on it here 

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html

Aranyani

If it comes from an animal, it isn’t vegan.  If it comes from a plant, it is vegan.

Cashews come from plants. 

Shops/manufacturers can only label things as vegan if they can guarantee there isn’t the tiniest trace of milk or egg protein from the factory.

Emmia

Toothsmith said:

Cashews probably are - but it's not as silly a question as it first seems. 

There was something a few months ago about avocado. Anyone would think anything that just 'grows' would be vegan, but with avocados, apparently, there are circumstances where captive (hive) bees are used in their pollination. Thus making them not 'vegan-friendly'.

Interesting article on it here 

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/10/health/avocado-almond-vegan-partner/index.html

But that can apply to any pollinated crop - if you pick an apple off a tree in your garden, that happens as a result of the flower being pollinated - but you've really no way of knowing if the bee (or insect) pollinating was a wild bee or a bee from a hive. The apple though would be classed as vegan though presumably.

I know that there are crops which have hives moved from farm to farm in order to do the pollination though - perhaps that's cruel and not vegan.

Spank

There is a difference though, the bees that pollinate your fruit are doing it naturally, the bees in commercial growing are kept in hives that are transported to where they are needed. 

FTR I'm not vegetarian & think the bees are probably happy because they get loads of pollen.

yksi

It's a thorny one because there is no question that commercial bees are very well-cared for. Those bees wouldn't even exist were it not for the keepers who move the hives about to pollinate the plants. Without them we would basically have no stone fruit in the shops, for example. What you tend to find is that there are shouty people who yell about things without always being very well-educated on it. Apiarists go to a lot of trouble to keep their hives healthy!

Figs, on the other hand, are never technically vegan. They rely on insects which die inside their flower during the pollination process. But this is a natural process and many vegans are completely ok with eating them - because the insect is long-digested by the time it fruits.

Spoonie_Turtle

Spank said:

There is a difference though, the bees that pollinate your fruit are doing it naturally, the bees in commercial growing are kept in hives that are transported to where they are needed. 

FTR I'm not vegetarian & think the bees are probably happy because they get loads of pollen.

This is, as far as I understand, the issue. I'm not 100% sure why and whether the claims against the process are correct.

The Vegan Society website talks about honey and makes various claims about the farming of the bees involved but neglects to mention that ethical beekeeping involves harvesting excess honey, without which they would have to leave and make new nests to make more honey because they don't eat all that they make every year. (In a similar way that lanolin, ethically sourced, is not a problem because wool sheep *need* to be shorn in summer, for their health. What a waste that would be if the wool and lanolin were just thrown away - quite against true vegan philosophy I'd have thought.)

Aranyani

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Spank said:

There is a difference though, the bees that pollinate your fruit are doing it naturally, the bees in commercial growing are kept in hives that are transported to where they are needed. 

FTR I'm not vegetarian & think the bees are probably happy because they get loads of pollen.

This is, as far as I understand, the issue. I'm not 100% sure why and whether the claims against the process are correct.

The Vegan Society website talks about honey and makes various claims about the farming of the bees involved but neglects to mention that ethical beekeeping involves harvesting excess honey, without which they would have to leave and make new nests to make more honey because they don't eat all that they make every year. (In a similar way that lanolin, ethically sourced, is not a problem because wool sheep *need* to be shorn in summer, for their health. What a waste that would be if the wool and lanolin were just thrown away - quite against true vegan philosophy I'd have thought.)

Wool sheep only 'need' to be shorn because centuries of selective breeding means they overproduce wool so that we can benefit from it.  Wild relatives of sheep don't need human intervention like that, just like wild cattle don't need to be milked! 

Commercial honeybee keeping also makes life harder for all the wild bee species, as they are outcompeted by the sheer numbers of honeybees.  Its becoming a big issue in cities amazingly due to all the middle-class amateur beekeepers mistakenly thinking they are doing good. 

okane_ga_nai

Cashew nuts are often used in vegan recipes but there are issues about the cruelty involved in their harvest unless you buy fair trade cashews.
https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/blood-cashews