Ruminations

Do you know what is in your multi-vitamin? I recently did some basic research, and found many popular and well-known multi-vitamins (including many marketed in Iran and other Muslim countries where religious dietary laws are supposed to be widely observed) contain animal based product either in the form of beef (and that would be beef that has not been slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law) or pork (the consumption of which is totally forbidden under Islamic law.) Several "tell-tale" signs of multi-vitamins with animal product in them include product labels with the ingredient "gelatin" listed on them; vitamin pills which are fashioned as soft and chewy "Gel" type products; and multi-vitamins from certain manufacturers where the Vitamin A (and also some other vitamins) are animal-based. For those to whom this is a concern, an alternative would be to consume vegetarian and vegan multi-vitamin products which contain no animal based products. As an aside, I wonder if any forward looking government of one of these Muslim countries would supply the capital and resources and the initial market for me (i.e. partner up with me) to start a quality vegetarian multi-vitamin manufacturing facility with the objective of ultimately providing all the school-aged children of all Muslim (and other developing) nations an affordable daily multi-vitamin supplement to ensure proper health and growth (the product would be marketed to and distributed through the Health and Education Ministries of the countries in question.)