Thread: Silver sweets - VARAKH is NON-VEG

I don't if it's true or not.. But that was in my mail-box.. Thought to share with you guys....

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.

So, how have the mithai (sweets) people not been arrested so far? Milk has been treated as vegetarian to appease the powerful dairy lobby, but the silver foil or 'varakh' on each mithai cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered vegetarian.

"Beauty Without Cruelty", a Pune-based NGO that investigates into product ingredients, has produced a remarkable booklet on the varakh industry. Here is their report on how it is made.

The varakh-makers select animals at the slaughterhouse. Each animal is felt for the softness of its skin before it is killed. This means that a
substantial number of goat, sheep and cattle are killed specifically for the industry. Their skins are soaked in filthy, infested vats for 12 days to dehair them.

Then, workers peel away the epidermal layer, which they call jhilli, just under the top layer 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 wooden boards. Once these are dry, the workers cut out square pieces 19 cm by 15 cm. These pieces are made into pouches called auzaar and stacked into booklets. Each booklet has a cover of thick lamb suede called khol. Thin strips of silver called alagaa are placed inside the pouches.

Workers now hit the booklet with wooden mallets for three hours to beat the silver inside into the ultra-thin varakh of a thickness less than one micron called '999'. This varakh is then sent to sweet shops.

Here are the statistics that you should know. An animal's skin can make 20-25 pieces/pouches only. Each booklet has 360 pouches. One booklet is used to make 30,000 varakh pieces - less than the daily supply of a 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 eaten on mithai. 2.5 crore booklets are made by varakh companies that keep their slaughterhouse connection secret. But the truth is that not only is this industry killing animals furiously, much of the animal tissue that the booklet is made of remains in the varakh.


Each Jain knows in his heart that varakh is non-vegetarian. But they still use these dreadful items of mass destruction to decorate the idols of Jain
tirthankars. How amazing that the idols of those that preached and practised strict non-violence to all creatures should now be covered with slaughterhouse derived silver foils. Jains are the biggest buyers of the varakh industry. Many try to bluff themselves by saying that the varakh is machine-made

"Beauty Without Cruelty" has done a thorough investigation and found thatthere is not 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 German collaboration to beat silver pieces in between a special Indian manufactured paper in a hygienic and controlled atmosphere run round the clock by qualified Engineers and experienced R&D team". Initially, we were importing the special paper from Germany.

But when followed this up, no factory of the given name, or even address, was not found.The production of varakh is done mainly in north India: Patna, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur and Gaya (which is a Buddhist holy centre), in Bihar; Kanpur, Meerut and Varanasi (the holy city of Hindus) in Uttar Pradesh; and Jaipur, Indore, Ahmedabad and Mumbai. The booklets come to them from the slaughterhouses of Delhi, Lucknow, Agra and Ratlam.

Not only is varakh non-vegetarian, it is also very bad for your body - whether you are vegetarian or not. The silver cannot be digested; therefore, there are no benefits from its consumption . A study done in November 2005 by the Industrial Toxicology Research Center in Lucknow on varakh says that the silver foil available in the market has toxic and carcinogenic metals in the thin silver foil, nickel, lead, chromium and cadmium.


Damages Body also

Over half of the analysed silver foils had lower silver 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 heavy metals that can lead to cancer. The report also details the unhygienic conditions in which workers put silver in small leather bags and beat it into foil in filthy shops.

It is time we refused varakh-covered mithai, fruit or paan. Mithai shops should be taken to court for not labelling their products non-vegetarian, before selling them. I request everyone reading this article to strictly avoid the sweets that have a silver work on them. They are purely Non - Vegetarian. ISKCON also confirms their non - vegetarian nature.

What do you guys think?

Interesting reading - not that I care as I am non-vegetarian.

But we do not eat sweets with varakh everyday - maybe once in a month. We eat more shitty stuff than varakh everyday.

Originally Posted by just4kix

Interesting reading - not that I care as I am non-vegetarian.

Even i'm non-veggie

Originally Posted by just4kix

We eat more shitty stuff than varakh everyday.

Quiet true... But this article can help our JAIN FRIENDS

I heard the similar thing quite a long time back, i heard that they use buffalo skin, don't know, how far its true.

I am too a non -veg, but there are certain days like tuesday and thursday when i don't take non veg, and if its true then?

I am against animal cruelty. Why should they slaughter the animals
everytime? can't the leather pouches be used over and over again?

Also I am not sure the varakh on a sweet will contain any
significant animal matter.

Also I think we need to eat 10 kilos of sweets with varakh
everyday to get enough silver in our bodies to be harmful.

-F

i really wonder how true is tht...? coz almost of the sweets ve varakh on it.....the ones we get in shop....

but one thing i ve marked tht when its prashad from the couple of temples theres no varakh on it......

I already know this and as an pure veg i never eat methai covered with silver, apart from this there are so many other chocolates which i never try are Mars, Twix, Snickers which we get from In&Out, 24/7 etc. stores because these chocolates contain rennet which is made up of young calve's stomach. It is really very strange to kill animals for your taste.

I am 100% against animal killing and non veg diet.

So many products use substances made from animal products, like the above mentioned rennet which is commonly used for making hard cheese.

Also another common example is gelatin. The raw material used for gelatin production is animal skin and bones. It's used in a lot of items, most common being foods and capsules for medicine.

Originally Posted by smoothvibes

apart from this there are so many other chocolates which i never try are Mars, Twix, Snickers which we get from In&Out, 24/7 etc. stores because these chocolates contain rennet which is made up of young calve's stomach.

That is GROSS... I mean why they do these kind of things.. and i'm pretty sure that they don't mention this in their product..

Originally Posted by aashaka_gandhi

but one thing i ve marked tht when its prashad from the couple of temples theres no varakh on it......

Even i noticed this..

Originally Posted by cableguy

Also another common example is gelatin. The raw material used for gelatin production is animal skin and bones. It's used in a lot of items, most common being foods and capsules for medicine.

It's everywhere...

gothic_coder do you know how they make silver varakh

no i dunno.....can u pls lemme kno......?

Originally Posted by smoothvibes

gothic_coder do you know how they make silver varakh

According to my post which comes from mail.. Following is the procedure to make silver varakh..

The varakh-makers select animals at the slaughterhouse. Each animal is felt for the softness of its skin before it is killed. This means that a
substantial number of goat, sheep and cattle are killed specifically for the industry. Their skins are soaked in filthy, infested vats for 12 days to dehair them.

Then, workers peel away the epidermal layer, which they call jhilli, just under the top layer 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 wooden boards. Once these are dry, the workers cut out square pieces 19 cm by 15 cm. These pieces are made into pouches called auzaar and stacked into booklets. Each booklet has a cover of thick lamb suede called khol. Thin strips of silver called alagaa are placed inside the pouches.

Workers now hit the booklet with wooden mallets for three hours to beat the silver inside into the ultra-thin varakh of a thickness less than one micron called '999'. This varakh is then sent to sweet shops.

P.S

Is there some other way to make it??

Yes this is the way of making varakh, if you will check some of the videos or pics on net then i am sure you will not be able to eat this silver foil ever again.

Originally Posted by smoothvibes

Yes this is the way of making varakh, if you will check some of the videos or pics on net then i am sure you will not be able to eat this silver foil ever again.

Say no to SILVER FOIL aka VARAKH :nono::nono::nono:

Originally Posted by smoothvibes

Yes this is the way of making varakh, if you will check some of the videos or pics on net then i am sure you will not be able to eat this silver foil ever again.

what about the foil paper, we use to wrap chapatis, i think that's different made from metal

what do you think guys?

Originally Posted by Manish

what about the foil paper, we use to wrap chapatis, i think that's different made from metal

what do you think guys?

I guess that is safe... It's aluminium prepared in very thin metal leafs (0.2 mm / 0.008 in), .. For more information refer Here and Here

Don't know about authenticity....

I was thinking the same i.e. metal, damn how could I miss aluminium

It is indeed correct that Silver Varks are made by the same procedure. I happen to know it from my child hood. I heard it from my father.

But there is one thing most of you have missed. We don't get Silver Varks anymore. Most of the Varks you see on sweets these days are not at all silver. Silver Vark cannot be lifted from the sweet once it is placed on the sweet. Neither can it be removed easily from the fingers once it sticks, but try this next time with a vark on a sweet, I can guarantee that you'll be able to lift the Vark if you are careful enough, like a paper. This goes on to show that it is much thicker than supposed to be and not silver.

Couldn't go on to suggest chemical analysis as such, but once I read this in The Telegraph.

I am not saying the Original Post is bogus. But sometimes
these activist sites over-exagerate. Sometimes they
themselves setup things to prove their point.

There was a video a long time back of animal
cruelty and it turned out that it was the
organization itself that set it up and
treated the animals bad and then taped it
and said this is what happens in so and so place....

-F

Originally Posted by sharadkumar

It is indeed correct that Silver Varks are made by the same procedure. I happen to know it from my child hood. I heard it from my father.

But there is one thing most of you have missed. We don't get Silver Varks anymore. Most of the Varks you see on sweets these days are not at all silver. Silver Vark cannot be lifted from the sweet once it is placed on the sweet. Neither can it be removed easily from the fingers once it sticks, but try this next time with a vark on a sweet, I can guarantee that you'll be able to lift the Vark if you are careful enough, like a paper. This goes on to show that it is much thicker than supposed to be and not silver.

Couldn't go on to suggest chemical analysis as such, but once I read this in The Telegraph.

Might be... But have to careful enough to what they've replaced for silver varakh.. One thing for sure i'm not going to eat anything having silver stuff on it (My fav "Kaju Barfi" always comes with silver varakh only)

Originally Posted by farce

I am not saying the Original Post is bogus. But sometimes
these activist sites over-exagerate. Sometimes they
themselves setup things to prove their point.

There was a video a long time back of animal
cruelty and it turned out that it was the
organization itself that set it up and
treated the animals bad and then taped it
and said this is what happens in so and so place....

Quite true..But i guess after seeing so many videos on you tube and good "word of mouth" i'm not gonna do it ..
Precaution is always better than cure.

MY KAJU BARFI
:48::48::48:

:no: gothic_coder Don't cry :sad:

even i love kaaju barfi and it comes without silver varakh too. You can get it from Bikano otherwise you can tell methaai wala that you need plain kaaju barfi without varakh

Look this is kaaju barfi without varkh which you can get from sweets shop
Kaju Barfi.jpg

otherwise can make at home too
cashewnuts-burfee.jpg

That's big relief

want to eat kaaju barfi kya...

come come i will give you lots and lots of kaaju katli without varakh

Isn't courier option available there

yes it is available, you want to come in courier parcel kya