I work in a diner, and there has been a recent rumor going around from vegetarian friends that there is beef blood in ketchup. My friend, who is a chef, claims that this is mildly true, as they use the pigmentation from beef blood to help give ketchup it’s color. Any info would be appreciated.
My teenage son asks me, “Why are you sitting there with the ketchup bottle at the computer?”
I tell him, “Because somebody in GQ wants to know whether there’s really beef blood in ketchup.”
He asks in puzzlement, “Why would there be beef blood in ketchup?”
Why indeed.
List of ingredients, Kroger brand ketchup:
Tomato concentrate (water and tomato paste)
High fructose corn syrup
Corn syrup
Vinegar
Salt
Onion powder
Spice and natural flavor.
No “coloring”. Just “tomatoes”. Tomatoes are red, therefore ketchup is red.
Ketchup is cooked, both in the “stirring the ingredients together” part and in the “food processing” part, where it’s sterilized and put into bottles. When beef blood is cooked, it turns brown. If there were beef blood in ketchup, it would turn brown, not stay red.
You shouldn’t listen to Ronnie The Grill Cook when he pulls your leg about stuff like this. 
They use the beef blood to diguise the color of the greasy grimey gopher guts and mutilated monkey meat.
No, everyone else is right. There’s no beef blood in ketchup. Most vegans agree that ketchup is a-okay. I eat the stuff occasionally.
Also, mr. splitfoot, I like your name. 
:cough, cough: Maybe b-okay.
[ul][li]Milk sugar as a filler / texture enhancer.[/li][li]Flavor enhancer made from meat extract.[/li][li]You never really know what ‘natural’ flavor means. I think the original rumor was about Heinz using blood in here. They (at least they) don’t, but since you don’t have to declare what your ‘flavors’ are, the food industry will have to deny every single rumor one by one. You can’t prove a negative.[/li][li]“Greasy grimey gopher guts” isn’t too far off. The vinegar might have been made from wine made with fining agents made from fish bladders.[/li][li]Emulsifiers derived from not further specified fats.[/li][li]White sugar might have been filtered through charcoal made from animal bones.[/li]There may be added extra lycopin (some health hype tomato stuff) coated with gelatin to make it dissolvable.[/ul]Some of it has to be declared, and some is very unlikely, but there’s still something left to worry about for a vegan.