Don't you hate when you begin enjoying your meal and you find some hair that accidentally ended up in there? Well... Some of the food you might be enjoying has hair purposely added. GROSS.

Why?
L-cysteine is added to food as a conditioner/ strengthener for the dough. The dough can be stretched to make pizza dough or it helps give bread/bagels etc.  a longer shelf life.

L-cysteine is commonly coming from human hair, duck feathers and hog hair. The hair is dissolved in an acid and forms a powder. The most popular manufacture is in China.

The good thing is the FDA requires that food containing L-cysteine to be labelled due to vegetarians/vegans and Kosher/Halal diets. There is synthetic ways to make l-cysteine but only 10% of the market is doing this.

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Why is it not vegan?
Well for one it is an animal product but it's also how they collect the feathers/hair. When there is a demand for a product it forces suppliers to get the product at any cost. The human hair tends to be gathered from hair dressers and it is preferred as it produces more l-cysteine (this is not exploiting because the person consents to a hair cut.). Feathers and hog hair are then back ups and are more widely used because they come in 'big quantities' this is exploiting animals because they are not consenting to get their hair/feathers taken from them.

[A gif or video was added here in a newer version of Wattpad. Update now to see.]

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