Animal Free/Vegan

Animal products are either produced by an animal or taken from the body of an animal. The term is primarily used in relation to diet, particularly for vegetarians and vegans but also includes any products made from or containing animal products.

There is debate about what constitutes an animal product, as often the term is generally not applied to products made from fossilized or decomposed animals, such as Petroleum, which is formed from the ancient remains of marine animals. Crops grown in soil fertilized with animal remains are rarely characterized as animal products.

The term "animal product" in a vegan context refers to any material derived from animals for human use. Notable animal products include meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, dairy products, honey, fur, leather, wool, and silk. Common animal by-products include gelatin, lanolin, rennet, whey, casein, beeswax, isinglass, and shellac.

Animal products are ingredients in countless products and are often also used in the production of products yet may not always be present in the final form. Vegan Outreach argues that "it can be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to shun every minor or hidden animal-derived ingredient", and therefore that doing what is "best for preventing suffering" is more important than identifying and excluding every animal ingredient Although honey and silk are by definition animal products, some vegans consider their use and the use of other insect products to be acceptable.

Since the 17^th century, the issue of non-human suffering has been debated and moral theories put forward, but it took until 1997 for the concept of animal sentience to be written into basic law of the European Union (EU), thereby requiring the EU and its member states to “pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals”.

In Eastern religions, such as Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, animals are considered sentient beings, beings that have the ability to feel or perceive subjectively, to feel pain and pleasure. This concept embraces non violence towards other beings.

Veganism is an ethical commitment (a moral conviction) concerning the rights of animals and therefore seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

Out of respect for all living things, Natracare products do not contain any animal ingredients or raw materials processed with any animal products. Neither the raw materials nor the finished products are ever tested on non-human animals. All Natracare products are suitable for vegans and people of Faith whose teachings respect animals as sentient beings.

scientific research

A recent study published in the British Journal of Cancer [1], part of a long-term international study into cancer and nutrition, produced fresh evidence on the possible links between eating meat and developing cancer.

The largest study to date has concluded that vegetarians are 45% less likely to develop cancer of the blood than meat eaters and are 12% less likely to develop cancer overall. The study also reported that the total cancer incidence was significantly lower among both the fish eaters and the vegetarians compared with meat eaters.

The findings were based on a study of 61,000 people who scientists followed over 12 years. During this time, 3,350 participants were diagnosed with cancer. Of those, 68% (2,204) were meat eaters, 24% (800) were vegetarians and 9.5% (300) ate fish but no meat.

The Oxford research is just one of a series of reports to discourage too much meat in the diet. In 2008, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – which last year earned a share of the Nobel peace prize – urged giving up meat at least once a week as a way of combating global warming. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.