Brouhaha in Britain Over New 5 Pound Notes!
 

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016...iver.html?_r=0

Who would have thunk that issuing a new five pound bank note would create such controversy -I'll put this in the ONLY IN BRITAIN category!

Give me a break - note tainted with animal products. Don't veggies -vegans - have something better to complain about -like Fox Hunting?

God Save the Queen!

<i>Who would have thunk that issuing a new five pound bank note would create such controversy -I'll put this in the ONLY IN BRITAIN category!</i>

That's unfair. This is clearly a vegan thing. The average Brit doesn't give two hoots about this. If you want to blame someone, blame vegans. #FirstWorldProblems


It's the tallow from half of a cow for all 329,000,000 notes!

No, really:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/a-ver...the-new-fivers

<i>Tallow is rendered cow or mutton fat, but for the sake of argument let's go with cows here.

How much do cows weigh? Between 1,100kg for a male (bull) and 720kg for a female. So, on average, a cow weighs 910kg.

The body fat content of an average cow is 25 percent. Therefore, the amount of fat in an average cow's body is 227.5kg.

How many kilograms of this fat is contained in offcuts you could use to make tallow? About 40kg, according to a man at the James Elliott butcher in Islington.

How much tallow is used in one note, according to the Bank of England? "A trace", which chemically means less than 100 parts per million, or 0.01 percent. A polymer consultant I called confirmed that the tallow present in a given polymer would be a fraction of a single percentage.

New £5 notes weigh 0.7g, therefore there is roughly 0.00007 g of tallow present in one £5 note.

How many fivers are in circulation now, and therefore will be around by May of 2017, when all the old paper ones have been phased out? 329 million notes.

To work out how much tallow will be used in total in all of these fivers, we need to multiply 0.00007g by 329 million, which gives us 23,030g, or 23kg.

And if you get about 40kg of tallow-worthy fat from the average cow, how many cows would you need to make every single £5 note in circulation?

JUST OVER HALF OF ONE COW</i>

Yup much ado bout nothing!

What if vegans ride buses or tube - seats may have a tinge of tallow>

I guess for that matter they are also neither kosher nor halal.

What brouhaha? Only a few cranks are fussed about it! Were they planning to eat the fivers?

Were they planning to eat the fivers?>

Apparently the Bank of England reported that more than a few banknotes get eaten in the version of the article I read in today's NYTimes. They figured that precisely 5,364 banknotes had been eaten in 2105:

<If you’re wondering how many people would actually eat a bank note — as many did — the answer appears to be a lot: In promoting the new notes this year, the Bank of England said that 5,364 bills had to be replaced in 2015 because they had been chewed or eaten.>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/wo...getarians.html

"A spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Simon Round, told the BBC: "The five pound notes wouldn't cause any problem to Jews unless they try to eat them.

"Jews are not allowed to consume tallow but are permitted to handle it.""

Since when were Hindu, Seikhs and Jains cranks?

I think there are other countries with polymer notes who also use tallow. I read an article on it the other day but can't find it now.

I think there are other countries with polymer notes who also use tallow. I read an article on it the other day but can't find it now.>

Canada one of the article says.

I remember Jains in India always wearing a fine mesh over the mouth lest the eat one of their ancestors in forms of insects they may inadvertently eat. Even many locals turned their heads when a group of Jains came thru for some reason gawking at them.

I wonder how many people will eat polymer banknotes, then? Plastic is very hard to chew!

Duh! That's why they made then of plastic - too many bills getting eaten!

Yes, but you can take comfort in the fact that the French, with their culinary genius are sure to come up with a recipe in which they take only the most freshly printed notes and, with a bit of foie gras,, a touch of truffle, and creative plating, will come up with a lovely dish they will sell for €100. :-)

It's not the amount - it's the fact that they can't make money without animal product. Who ever had this really silly idea?

Australia was the first country (1988) in the world to have a complete system of bank notes Made from plastic (polymer).miniscule amounts of tallow are used in all banknotes here

too many hindus, even a trace amount is polluting. so there's a lot of activism from that side to change the specifications of the notes

also the Indian mutiny started over sepoys refusing to use cartridges that were capped with tallow.

too = to

>>also the Indian mutiny started over sepoys refusing to use cartridges that were capped with tallow.<<

Because they had to bite the end to open it for use.

I know vegans that wear leather shoes.......This sounds very much like the "find fault with everything, victim, vulnerable" minority are after their 15 minutes of fame again.

Whinging is our national sport. Ask any Australian.

Apparently plastic shopping bags contain trace amounts of animal fats too. Sometimes it's better not to know what goes on during the manufacturing process.
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-su...ts-2014-3?IR=T

<i>too many hindus, even a trace amount is polluting.</i>

This is an absurd argument. Unless you are in a lab environment, there's a trace amount of anything in everything.