Recently, I was at a friend's house and I was going to get a packet of iced tea flavoring or something for her brother's gf.

anyway, I was reading the ingredients and I saw LACTOSE on there. OMG, why would you need to add lactose to iced tea mix??? that just totally blew my mind away...

ps. I haven't been on the boards much this year, but felt that with a new school year upon me, many things on my mind and a well overdo return, that it was time to come back!

(plus I can rant about my school's cafeteria, if they don't shape up!)

Cheap filler. Yeah, it sucks.

Especially if you're lactose intolent, like me.

Erm, yeah, i have found lactose in EVERYTHING! My well-meaning dad bought me a packet of honey roasted sunflowers seeds the other day (I know, honey is not vegan, but my dad still tries to get me to eat steak so I though it was great of him to try and buy something for me...I didn't have the heart to tell him I don't eat honey). So I read the ingredients just for kicks and I expected to see sunflowers, salt, and honey....What did I find? Lactose and bunch of other unpronouncable ingredients. :wall:

Lactose is a common ingredient whenever you buy flavoured stuff - from crisps (US: chips) to nuts to candy. Usually the plain variety is lactose-free, i.e. plain crisps. It's because lactose is used in order to make the flavourings 'stick' to the product.

And yeah, the list of ingredients for flavoured snacks is ridiculous. When comparing 2 packs of peanuts from the same brand (I wanted some food whilst in the pub), the plain ones had peanuts, veg oil, salt, whereas the flavoured ones had about 10 ingredients including lactose, MSG and aspartame. If they want to mess up a product, they can do a pretty thorough job.

its a pain in the ass... its everywhere- even in many over the counter painkillers like asprin. its used in prescribed medicines a lot too. i usually end up with the kiddies liquid version of prescribed medicines to avoid the lactose in tablets, and the gelatine in the capsule shells, lol.