Sweets that are non-vegetarian: The lowdown on waraq (aka var

[Guest guest]

dot on it, if it is vegetarian - and a maroon dot, ifit is non-vegetarian. If a

manufacturer is found to becheating by mislabelling his product, the sentence

ismany years in jail.So, how have the mithai (sweets) people not been

arrested so far? Milk has been treated as vegetarianto appease the powerful

dairy lobby, but the silver;foil&nb sp;or 'varakh' on each mithai cannot by

anystretch of imagination be considered vegetarian.

'Beauty Without Cruelty', a Pune-based NGO thatinvestigates into product

ingredients, has produced aremarkable booklet on the varakh industry. Here

istheir report on how it is made.The varakh-makers select animals at the

slaughterhouse. Each animal is felt for the softnessof its skin before it is

killed. This means that asubstantial number of goat, sheep and cattle arekilled

specifically for the industry. Th eir ;skins

are soaked in filthy, infested vats for 12 days todehair them. Then, workers

peel away the epidermallayer, which they call jhilli, just under the toplayer

of the skin in a single piece.These layers are soaked for 30 minutes in another

decoction to soften them and left to dry on woodenboards.Once these are dry, the

workers cut out square pieces19 cm by 15 cm. These pieces are made into

pouchescalled auzaar and stacked into booklets. Each booklet

has a cover of thic k l amb suede called khol. Thinstrips of silver called

alagaa are placed inside thepouches. Workers now hit the bookletwith wooden

mallets for three hours to beat the silverinside into the ultra-thin varakh of

a thickness less

than one micron called '999'. This varakh is then sentto sweet shops.Here are

the statistics that you should know. Ananimal's skin can make 20-25

pieces/pouches only. Eachbooklet has 360 pouches. One booklet is used to make

30,000 varakh pieces - less than the daily supply ofa single big mithai

shop.About 12,500 animals are killed for one kg of varakh.Every year, 30,000 kg

of varakh (30 tonnes) are eatenon mithai. 2.5

crore booklets are made by varakhcompanies that keep their slaughterhouse

connectionsecret. But the truth is that not only is thisindustry killing

animals furiously, much of the animaltissue that the booklet is made of remains

in the

varakh.Each Jain knows in his heart that varakh isnon-vegetarian. But they still

use these dreadfulitems of mass destruction to decorate the idols ofJain

tirthankars. How amazing that the idols of those

that preached and practiced strict non-violence to allcreatures should now be

covered with slaughterhousederived silver foils. Jains are the biggest buyers

ofthe varakh industry. Many try to bluff themselves by

saying that the varakh is machine-made.'Beauty Without Cruelty' hasdone a

thorough investigation and found that there isnot a single machine-made varakh

piece in this country(or even the world).

On the web, there is one letter from a person,Jalandhra, claiming that he has a

company which has"fully automatic machines manufactured with

Germancollaboration to beat silver pieces in between aspecial Indian

manufactured paper in a hygienic and

controlled atmosphere run round the clock by qualifiedEngineers and experienced

R&D team". Initially, wewereimporting the special paper from Germany. But when

Ifollowed this up, no factory of the given name, or

even address, was not found.The production of varakh is done mainly in

northIndia: Patna,Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur and Gaya (which is a Buddhistholy

centre) in Bihar; Kanpur, Meerut and Varanasi(the holy city of Hindus) in Uttar

Pradesh; and

Jaipur, Indore, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. The bookletscome to them from the

slaughterhouses of Delhi,Lucknow, Agra and Ratlam.Not only is varakh

non-vegetarian, it is also very badfor yourbody -whether you are vegetarian or

not. The silver

cannot be digested; therefore, there are no benefitsfrom its consumption. A

study done in November 2005 bythe Industrial Toxicology Research Centre in

Lucknowon varakh says that the silver foil available in the

market has toxic and carcinogenic metals in the thinsilver foil, nickel, lead,

chromium and cadmium.Over half of the analyzed silver foils had lowersilver

purity than the 99.9 per cent purity stipulated

by the prevention of food adulteration act of India.When such foil enters into

the body, it releases heavymetals that can lead to cancer. The report

alsodetails the unhygienic conditions in which workers put

silver in small leather bags and beat it into foil infilthy shops.It is time we

refused varakh-covered mithai, fruit orpaan. If you want to send booklets to

all yoursweetshops, you can send a donation to Beauty Without

Cruelty, 4 Prince of Wales Drive, Wanowrie,Pune-411040 (Tel:020-26871166).As for

me, I think that this year, I will take themithai shops to court for not

labeling their productsnon-vegetarian, & nb sp; before selling them. Let us

see how many of them go to jail, or have theirbusiness closed down. I suggest

you cut out thisarticle and show it to your local sweetshops.RegardsNambiar

Manoj KumarManager - ITBhaktivedanta Hospital

Bhaktivedanta Swami Marg,Sector 1, Srishti Complex,Mira Road (E)Office -

28459888 Ext- 2145Direct - 28453852Mobile No.

9323939323------------------------ Sponsor

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Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing

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[Guest guest]

law, every food item has to have a green dot on it, if it is vegetarian - and a

maroon dot, ifit is non-vegetarian. If a manufacturer is found to becheating by

mislabelling his product, the sentence ismany years in jail., but the

silver;foil&nb sp;or 'varakh' on each mithai cannot by anystretch of

imagination be considered vegetarian.

[Guest guest]

Dear Swamin

 

Firstly, thank you for the information on waraq.

 

On a wider plane I am a little confused on the issue

of adhering to strict vegetarianism in this time and

age.It looks like the line demarcating the two is

slowly fading away - see below.

 

I am not sure whether it would make sense to 'reject'

medicines that the doc prescribes when someone is down

sick due to the fact that they may have some

non-vegetarian content.

 

The need of the hour seems to be to qualify

vegetarianism in accordance to the present times.

 

Please excuse me in case i have offended anyone with

this mail as the intention is solely to get your

valuable thought on the matter.

 

Adiyen Ramanuja dasan

 

aravindan

 

Extract from the TOI-

 

In May 2005, Indian officials announced they were

planning on labeling all cosmetics and personal

hygiene products as to whether or not they were

"vegetarian." This came after officials had early

proposed labeling medicines as to whether or not they

were "vegetarian." That proposal was ultimately

rejected on the grounds that almost all medicine would

have to be labeled "non-vegetarian" and might

discourage strict vegetarians from accepting them.

 

--- shekar babu <prs_raaj wrote:

 

> om namo ramanujaya namaha

>

> dear sir,

>

> you have tought me a beautiful lesson regarding

> WARAQ. i am really astonished that how i am eating

> this one which is coming from animal skin. i think

> that everybody should aware of this WARAQ which is

> very very harmful.

>

> i will promise you that i will definetely take

> part in reaching your goal with this information to

> every one i know.

>

> thanking you sir,

>

> shekar

>

> Anil kumar Sakamuri <anil.sakhamuri

> wrote:

> Subject:Sweets are non-vegetarian: The lowdown on

> waraq (aka varakh)

> Sweets are non-vegetarian

>

> Beasts in my belfry / Maneka Gandhi

>

> In India, by law, every food item has to have a

> green

> dot on it, if it is vegetarian - and a maroon dot,

> if

> it is non-vegetarian. If a manufacturer is found to

> be

> cheating by mislabelling his product, the sentence

> is

> many years in jail.

>

> but the silver

> ;foil&nb sp;or 'varakh' on each mithai cannot by any

> stretch of imagination be considered vegetarian.

>

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

persons won't say that whether it is VEGETARIAN, NON VEGETARIAN. this question

doesn't arise here. however this is my opinion , kindly ignore if anybody is

hurt by my words. regards shekar Arvind Rajagopalan

<rwind_raj > wrote: Dear SwaminFirstly, thank you for the information

on waraq.On a wider plane I am a little confused on the issueof adhering to

strict vegetarianism in this time andage.It looks like the line demarcating the

two isslowly fading away - see

below.I am not sure whether it would make sense to 'reject'medicines that the

doc prescribes when someone is downsick due to the fact that they may have

somenon-vegetarian content.The need of the hour seems to be to

qualifyvegetarianism in accordance to the present times.Please excuse me in

case i have offended anyone withthis mail as the intention is solely to get

yourvaluable thought on the matter.Adiyen Ramanuja dasanaravindanExtract from

the TOI- In May 2005, Indian officials announced they wereplanning on labeling

all cosmetics and personalhygiene products as to whether or not they

were"vegetarian." This came after officials had earlyproposed labeling

medicines as to whether or not theywere "vegetarian." That proposal was

ultimatelyrejected on the grounds that almost all medicine wouldhave to be

labeled "non-vegetarian" and mightdiscourage strict vegetarians from

accepting them.--- shekar babu <prs_raaj (AT) (DOT) co.in> wrote:> om namo ramanujaya

namaha> > dear sir,> > you have tought me a beautiful lesson

regarding> WARAQ. i am really astonished that how i am eating> this one which

is coming from animal skin. i think> that everybody should aware of this WARAQ

which is> very very harmful.> > i will promise you that i will definetely

take> part in reaching your goal with this information to> every one i know.>

> thanking you sir, > > shekar> > Anil kumar Sakamuri

<anil.sakhamuri >> wrote:> Subject:Sweets are non-vegetarian: The

lowdown on> waraq (aka varakh)> Sweets are

non-vegetarian> > Beasts in my belfry / Maneka Gandhi> > In India, by law, every

food item has to have a> green > dot on it, if it is vegetarian - and a maroon

dot,> if> it is non-vegetarian. If a manufacturer is found to> be> cheating by

mislabelling his product, the sentence> is> many years in jail.> > but the

silver> ;foil&nb sp;or 'varakh' on each mithai cannot by any> stretch of

imagination be considered vegetarian. >

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