Cadbury Bournvita may contain Pork!

To whomsoever it may be of any concern

Recently, a friend of of mine mentioned something about peanut shells being used in many health drinks,  and I was startled to hear that and decided to check it out for myself for all of the things that I remember having consumed ever in my life. Cadbury Bournvita is the very first on my list and many more are likely to follow based on how I feel about it and what sort of feedback I receive from my friends. That this is timed with Maggi lead contamination is just coincidental.

Thanks to my mother's firm decision against Maggi when I was a child, I personally do not recall of having ever consumed Maggi at all even though my ex-wife was a major Maggi-lover.

Cadbury Bournvita is one of the widely advertised health drink sold all over India and I myself was habitual drinker of it as a child and I wholly wish that I could undo this. I've always considered myself vegetarian.

I decided to search on internet for information and came up with this site that lists ingredients of Cadbury Bournvita as sold in India as

Malt Extract 
Cocoa Solids
Milk Solids
Sugar
Carmel (E 150)
Liquid Glucose
Emulsifier E 322
Emulsifier E 471 **********************
Vitamins
Minerals
Raising Agents (E 500),
Salt,
Ethyl Vanillin,
Liquid Vanilla Flavour.

Next, I decided to search for each of this ingredients one-by-one to see how they are made and came up with few more sites. For all of the elements that are listed in the bold font above, I've been able to find little bit more information. Rest of the ingredient's descriptions are either way too generic or too deeply encrypted to decipher in first attempt.

To my very limited understanding, the Malt Extract, the Cocoa Solids and the Milk Solids seem to be bye-products of some other production process. It would be bit too premature to label them as waste products but I would not be surprised if it actually turned out to be that.

The Malt Extract seems to be bye-product of beer production and its details can be found in this wikipedia page. Very very interestingly, the wikipedia reveals the original attempts of promotion for Malt Extracts and I simply re-quote the words here "... Malt extract was given as a "strengthening medicine" by Kanga to Roo in The House at Pooh Corner, and was also Tigger's favorite food in the book ..."

To those of you, who did not capture the essence of above references, Pooh refers to a popular children's comic book Winnie the Pooh. Kanga, Roo and Tigger are all animal characters in that comic book!

Another very important phrase in that wikipedia page is "... British urban working-class ..."

Information about the cocoa Solids can be found in this wikipedia page. As explained on the website, simplified here:

Cocoa solids are a mixture of many substances remaining after cocoa butter is extracted from cacao beans.
The Cocoa liquor is a paste of roasted cacao beans with cocoa butter and cocoa solids in their natural proportions.

For the process of making chocolate, cocoa butter is extracted from one set of cacao bean which is then added to the cocoa liquor, and the remainder of that process is Cocoa solids (beans minus its natural butter removed)

No satisfactory description was found for Milk Solids but a general description that can be found states that it is produced by removing water from the Milk.

Carmel (E150) is a sugar that is burnt in particular manner and has its side-effects listed on this page that says that it may cause damage to intestines when consumed in excess.

Emulsifier E322's  factual properties are described on this page . E322 can be produced from plants as well as from eggs. There is no clarifications as to what source is used in the Bournvita.

Emulsifier E471's  factual properties are described on this page. Most important part of dietary restriction that says and is quoted here verbatim

Although mainly vegetable oils are used, the use of animal fat (incl. pork) can not be excluded. Several groups, such as vegans, Muslims and Jews thus avoid these products. Only the producer can give detailed information on the origin of the fatty acids. Chemically the fatty acids from vegetable or animal origin are identical.

Important phrases on that website are:

 1) Use of pork cannot be excluded; In other words, Pork is included

 2) At a chemical level, fatty acids from animal or vegetable sources are identical. So, a laboratory test cannot be relied upon to find out whether it is animal source or vegetable source. Only the Producer can give information and you get no marks for guessing whether he will lie or not. 

CONCLUSION:
It is very very likely that ingredients of Cadbury Bournvita contain Pork but this ingredient is hidden in such a manner that independent laboratory test can never reveal its presence.