many of you may have noticed that mars is phazing out skittles containing gelatin, and replacing them with ostensibly vegan versions of the rainbow colored treats.
…but not so fast! before you rush out and fork over your hard-earned dollars for the candy you have been missing for years, stop a second to think about what that money is supporting. while skittles now contain all vegan ingredients, their manufacturer is anything but cruelty-free. mars, the maker of candies such as m&m’s, snickers, twix, dove, three muskateers, starburst, and skittles, conducts deadly and unnecessary tests on animals. since this is such a happy-go-lucky blog, i won’t depress you with all the details. if you want more information, you can read about it here.
as with anything, you should take all this with a grain of salt. although, mars openly admits to testing on animals for symbioscience research, they deny sponsoring “research that harms animals” in the development of their snack food. PETA, however, claims that they are lying to the public and provides a whole list of disgusting incidents in which animal experiments were conducted for candy research. either way, mars has confirmed that they do test on animas. do you really think the candy division money is separate from the pet food?
just to be clear, i’m not telling you to avoid skittles or not eat them now that their ingredients are vegan. go right ahead. i just want you to be aware of the tests your money is funding. if you do decide to eat up the new gelatin-free skittles anyway, be sure to read the ingredients. not all the old calves’ feet candies are completely off the shelves yet.
my two cents.
Check out these related posts:
- None Found
Check out the new quarrygirl.com FORUMS!
9:13 am on July 23rd, 2009
I’d argue that those ‘coloring’ ingredients are reason enough to stay away from Skittles!
9:36 am on July 23rd, 2009
I agree with Scott. Those wack ingredients are enough reason to avoid the candy!
10:17 am on July 23rd, 2009
make your own damn candy, fuck candy anyway who needs it!?
10:20 am on July 23rd, 2009
Mars is also onboard with using cocoa harvested in Africa by child slaves.
http://www.foodrevolution.org/slavery_chocolate.htm
10:38 am on July 23rd, 2009
and i just realised, skittles main website has their twitter up there, so if you talk crap about skittles, it shows up on their home page!
http://www.skittles.com/?mm=08&dd=08&yy=1965&terms=on&x=60&y=21
10:50 am on July 23rd, 2009
never liked skittles anyways
2:34 pm on July 23rd, 2009
THANK YOU! I think far too many people are ignoring the animal testing, just for some candy. Animal testing = NOT VEGAN! Sorry kids!
6:33 pm on July 23rd, 2009
Boo skittles. I taste a rainbow…of murder!
Haha thanks for the comment, home skillet
7:39 am on July 24th, 2009
Wow, this is what Michael Pollan would call having corn with some of your corn. Those ingredients are crazy!
3:41 am on July 26th, 2009
While I think that testing on innocent animals is bad and we must fight it, I also think that visiting a restaurant which serves meat is much worse, because meat eating causes a lot more suffering in the world than testing on animals.
10:22 am on July 26th, 2009
zpizza supports meat producers.
“meat is murder,” according to your banner.
so isn’t promoting zpizza supporting murder?
10:24 am on July 26th, 2009
observer: i still eat at restaurants that serve meat. check out most of the places i review, not all are vegetarian restaurants.
i would love to eat all vegetarian restaurants, but i don’t know of one that serves daiya pizza.
until then, i will support the VEGAN options at zpizza.
3:30 am on July 27th, 2009
I’m too still eating at restaurants that serve meat, in my town there are no vegan restaurants and only vegetarian is Krishna place, where most food contains dairy. But I still try to support all the places which make vegan options. I think the same should be true for firms which try to make vegan products. We should let those firms know that we appreciate their efforts to make products without animal ingredients, but we’re against animal testing.
By the way, how ethical will be to buy product from a firm which is truly vegan but is owned by another firm which is not vegan(including animal testing)
7:45 am on July 27th, 2009
You won’t eat Skittles because you claim Mars uses animal testing.
But you will eat at zpizza even though they serve dead animals.
So if Mars made a Daiya snack, wouldn’t you eat it anyway?
It seems your convictions have lost to a fake cheese.
7:17 am on July 30th, 2009
[...] just got the news that Skittles no longer contain gelatin via this post over at quarrygirl.com. As Miss Anthrope so aptly points out, Mars, Inc. may have removed an [...]
3:11 am on October 1st, 2009
I can’t believe they are vegan now but yet they won’t stop testing on animals! How depressing. I won’t be eating these on Halloween.
8:41 pm on January 31st, 2010
[...] but that come from a company that uses gelatin in all their other products and tests on animals? (Crazy Cores Skittles, owned by Mars) Or items that have been bought out by a company that tests products on animals? (Tom’s of Maine [...]
12:31 pm on March 3rd, 2010
i love skittles, fuck all of you
5:07 pm on May 9th, 2010
Taylor, that was completely unnecessary. I understand you love skittles, but as a reply- No, fuck YOU. I never knew they tested on animals. I guess I will continue to not buy them.