Is e509 vegan?
E509 is a vegan food ingredient.
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"You are amazing, this has saved me so much time when grocery shopping!"
— Austin, a user who reached out with feedback
"It's been a great tool since starting my journey! You take a pic of the nutrition/ingredients, and it'll warn you of anything questionable or not vegan. 😁"
— Ashe, a Vegan For Beginners Facebook Group member
"Use a vegan app when you go shopping, I use WhatsVegan."
— Dóra, a Vegan For Beginners Facebook Group member
So, what is e509?
E509 is the European food additive code for calcium chloride, an inorganic salt composed of calcium and chlorine. It is commonly produced on an industrial scale by reacting natural limestone with hydrochloric acid, or obtained as a byproduct of the chemical Solvay process used in soda ash production. It can also be harvested directly from natural brine deposits.
In the food industry, calcium chloride acts primarily as a firming agent, sequestrant, and electrolyte. It is widely listed on labels for canned fruits and vegetables to keep them firm, as well as in commercial tofu production where it serves as a mineral coagulant. It also appears in bottled waters, sports drinks, and pickled products.
E509 is vegan because it comes entirely from mineral and synthetic sources. Animal-derived ingredients, processing aids, and animal byproducts are not used at any point during its extraction or chemical synthesis.
How to quickly find the source of ingredients like e509?
We've built a vegan ingredients scanner that classifies food ingredients as "vegan", "non-vegan", or "potentially vegan".
It allows you to avoid non-vegan ingredients - just take a picture of a product's ingredient list, and the app tells you if the product is vegan or not.
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