Can You Get Vegetarian Jelly?

Jelly typically includes gelatine which is made from meat collagen such as from the hooves of calves or animal hides. There are other gelling agents such as locust bean gum, beeswax, guar gum or agar which is made from seaweed. You can buy vegetarian jelly in granules, condensed cube or ready made in pots. You can also find vegetarian versions of gelatine based sweets like jelly beans and gummy bears.

Marks and Spencer and most major UK supermarkets will carry at least one vegetarian brand of jelly. You can often find other brands at health food, Indian or kosher stores. Each will; have a slightly different taste and consistency so you may need to try a few different types before getting one that you like. Vegetarian jelly brands include: Aeroplane Quick Set, Just Wholefoods, Lieber's Jel and Osem. But watch the Aeroplane brnad, only the quick set type is vegetarian.

Yes there are vegetarian jellies to be found or you can make your own. If you look for quick set jellies in the supermarket, some of these can be vegetarian: it will say so on the packet. Most traditional jellies are however, made from gelatine. Gelatine is the by product of spines (usually from cattle) and bits of pig which have been boiled down. Even some meat eaters prefer vegetarian jellies because they fear that gelatine has links to BSE (Mad Cow Disease).

You can make vegetarian jellies using either agar, which is also known as kanten and is a red sea vegetable. Or you could use carrageen, which is also known as irish moss and is rich in iodine and vitamin A. In addition there is a jelly on the market called Gelozene which is basically a vegetarian gel mix and can be used as a gelatine substitute.