Safe gelatin substitute?

[politicat]

We're having a Pending Apocalypse and End of the World Party on the 6th of June (6/6/06) and a friend is going to bring a gelatin mold (you don't want to know the shape.) We don't eat gelatin because we don't trust the industrial meat production in this country. She's willing to use something else, or an organic gelatin if I can find one.

Is there an option out there? Agar is really hard to work with, and xanthan gum has a lot of corn in it.

[Bjornsdotter]

1. How about pectin

if you use enough it would make a jelly.

cheers

[grasswire]

2. wait!

You think that gelatin could carry Mad Cow? I never thought about it.

[politicat]

4. It's considered possible.

Since gelatin is made from beef bones, there's always a chance. But my issues with industrial meat production have almost nothing to do with BSE. It's more with labor issues and cleanliness issues and environmental issues and sustainability issues and the fact that I don't want to support the industrial corn industry any more than I have to. I have a real problem with government corn subsidies and the cost of food (the whole reason for the subsidies is to keep the cost of food artificially low, therefore keeping people from rioting in the streets. It's post-modern bread and circuses, except we get processed corn and Survivor.)

I live in a region where feeding grain to animals is both environmentally destructive and economically foolish, so I do my best to buy local, grass-fed beef. But no one's come up with a grass-fed Jello yet.

[yewberry]

3. Hain makes vegan "Jell-O"

It's marketed under the name "Superfruits" and is available in fruit and plain varieties. Lots of health food stores carry it.

Good luck!

[Dora]

5. I've made agar gelatin for my son a few times..

I found it easy to work with, and it left the container pretty easily too. My only complaint was that the bottom seemed to be chewier than the top - as though the agar particles settled. I only knew this because he would spit out "hard" chunks of the gel.

I didn't actually eat much of it myself. :)

[politicat]

6. That's exactly the problem I've had with it.

If I do it the traditional jello way, letting it set up without disturbing it, it tends to ... chunk up a bit. Alternately, I can stir and stir and stir and STIR while it's setting (like every 15-20 minutes) and that keeps it from happening, but what a pain!