Diet Chef - vegetarians beware

After watching the diet chef show this afternoon, and hearinf Debbie Greenwood say that the veggie option has fish oil in it, but no fish, I called CS. I have no need for this product, but I have been vegetarian for 25 years and, as such, I would not classify anything with any animal product in it as being suitable for vegetarians. I'm watching Dale's hour now, and he did mention at the beginning that there was oil in the vegetarian option. Obviously, my call to CS was not in vain. But why are they still referring to it as the 'vegetarian option'? It is certainly not vegetarian if there is fish oil in the meals. Perhaps a vegetarian may purchase that choice, in the belief that it meets their dietary requirements, and did not catch the presenters mantion the inclusion of the fish oil, but assumed that because it was described as vegetarian, then it was.
Please QVC remove Vegetarian option from the choices; there is not a vegetarian option, just a pack without meat.

I hate that kind of weasel behaviour, shoddy in the extreme. Well done for complaining.

That's absolutely bang out of order, and I'm sure could be taken to Trading Standards very easily.
What a shocking revelation. Thank goodness it's not a product I'm ever likely to buy - I'd have been devastated if I'd scoffed it without knowing that. I do hope no-one's been caught out.
Well spotted, and thanks for posting it here.

Gosh that is just wrong and infuriating.
Think I'm gonna have to shoot off an e-mail to them about this one.

Sad thing is,there are a lot of folk out there who consider themselves vegetarian coz they only eat chicken and fish..........and the occasional bacon sandwich.


I wonder what vegetarian Julia Roberts has had to say about this???,I'm sure the ingredients will have been scrutinized by her.

This is a bad mistake for QVC to make. I've just emailed them, shan't be holding my breath though.

Thought Julia ate the diet chef food. I know she always goes on about being a vegetarian but if she was surely she would have made a statement about the food before anyone had a real chance to buy it?
I think that QVC can be misleading. Can't remember the product but it was some kind of supplement which they said was suitable for all, it took them half an hour before they said that it contained shellfish shells, ie therefore not suitable for vegetarians or those allergic to shellfish (I know debateable as to whether it would affect those allergic to shellfish because it was only the shells used and not the fish itself) however would you want to try it knowing that it could have an adverse and possibly dangerous effect on you? - a bit remiss wouldn't you say? :taphead:

That is terrible, as a veggie I would go mental if I bought that and found that out. Julia has been hinting that she is on some diet that will all be revealed in a few weeks.

I assumed she would be doing the vegetarian option of Diet chef...maybe not.

Very underhand.

I would put in a complain to ASA seems very serious to me

http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints-and-ASA-action/How-to-complain.aspx

deanos said:

I would put in a complain to ASA seems very serious to me

http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints-and-ASA-action/How-to-complain.aspx

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That's really bad - if everyone who reads this complains through this link it will have to be listened to!

I also heard Debbie G mention about the fish oils in the 'vegetarian' option.

The other thing that concerned me was that she was saying that you only needed to add some vegetables to the meals (fair enough I suppose) - but if you chose the 'vegetarian' ption you might also want to add some protein! What does that mean? I thought that the meals were supposed to be nutrtionally balanced for effective weight loss - and that the idea of the plan was that you didn't have to think about meal planning/ counting calories.

That is really bad, I guess that fish oil would be mentioned in the list of ingredients, so if a vegetarian did place an order and noticed that, they've still got the hassle of sending it back, and getting a full refund, but worse still for those who just took qvc's word for it and ate the stuff 'cause they referred to it as a vegetarian option. At least when you're buying in the shops, you can check the labelling on the packets and make your own choices, but a shopping channel has GOT to tell its customers exactly what they're buying, especially when it concerns something you eat, or put onto your skin!

I'm also surprised at diet chef itself, surely it wouldn't hurt them to make sure they cater for vegetarians, in fact it wouldn't hurt them to cater for vegans too, they're not freaks!

They should not be able to call it vegetarian. I am veggie and would be physically sick if I realised that I had eaten fish unwittingly. How come people, especially a so called food company like Diet Chef not get what vegetarian means !! It's not rocket science.

True vegetarians do not eat fish products....full stop! It would be very distressing for a vegetarian to eat this then realise what was in it...disgusting!

I went in a cafe once and asked if the cheese for a sandwich was vegetarian. She looked at me like I had two heads. You would assume though that people in the food industry would know all about food and what goes in it.

Could someone do a review on the website for that particular option and state that ingredient?

What a cute hammie, is he/she yours GB?

Hi Jan, he is my hamster, his name is George and he is knocking on a bit now. I love him to bits x

Georgiebandit said:

I went in a cafe once and asked if the cheese for a sandwich was vegetarian. She looked at me like I had two heads. You would assume though that people in the food industry would know all about food and what goes in it.

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You would be so wrong there. It's shocking what goes on between ignorance and dishonesty.

Perhaps the vegetarian society who award their mark to products would have some useful information about how they define vegetarian food products. I think I'm quite safe in assuming diet chef won't be getting any endorsement there.

I've sent an email to QVC just to give them heads up that a veggie would be very upset about fish oil but as Vampyre says there is a lot of ignorance out there and they probably won't bother changing the description. I suppose they will claim that as long as they mention it then people can make their own minds up whether to buy.

Meat free is a tad more acceptable if still not honest. I am disgusted by this one, so crooked and compromising other people's integrity.