Why is nutritional yeast vegan?

[ghost]

I thought the yeast was once a living organism.

but so are plants, enzymes, algae, spirulina and whatnot

[emm7]

Gelert would be the best person to ask about this as his specialist field is microbiology.

I know that yeast is a single celled animal but I assumed that the reason for yeast being vegan was that us vegans have to draw a line somewhere and that line has been drawn just west of Bees.

As a single celled animal without a nervous system I doubt whether yeast can feel pain as such? (Bees do have a nervous system see this link on Bee Anatomy http://captted.com/bees/beemanual/cb05.htm and can feel pain. Honey is considered not vegan ).

[vCLaW]

Yeast is not an animal - it is a fungus. So it is vegan. Simple.

[Asleep on a sunbeam]

Yeast is not an animal - it is a fungus. So it is vegan. Simple.

*phew* I was wondering for a few seconds why I'd put sugar in my bread maker...

[xbojanx]

Yeast is not an animal - it is a fungus. So it is vegan. Simple.

ccc...basics

[emm7]

I found this info, yes they are considered to be Fungi.
This is not good, I was told by a Biologist friend that a yeast is an animal! She said that vegans shouldn't eat bread because it contained yeast which was an animal. And to think she studied at Oxford.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast

Protozoans were once considered to be animals because they move and do not photosynthesize. Closer study has shown, though, that their movement is by means of nonmuscular structures (cilia, flagella, or pseudopods) and that photosynthesis in them has often been lost and gained. Protozoans do not, therefore, form a natural group but with algae form a eukaryotic kingdom separate from plants and animals, called Protista.
Like plants and animals, fungi arose from protists and are now accorded a kingdom of their own.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/25501/animal

[ghost]

I see..

[xbojanx]

I'm almost biologist (went through all the course, need to go through some exams, but due to vivisection I won't) and last time I checked Fungia is separate kingdom from Plants and Animals.

You're friend must have studied in 50ies or something when mushrooms were considered plants....

Anyway, new trends are off to classify organisms into 8 kingdoms, so....

This story is like "plants are living organisms too, you know, they also have feelings".

[emm7]

I'm almost biologist (went through all the course, need to go through some exams, but due to vivisection I won't) and last time I checked Fungia is separate kingdom from Plants and Animals.

You're friend must have studied in 50ies or something when mushrooms were considered plants....

Anyway, new trends are off to classify organisms into 8 kingdoms, so....

This story is like "plants are living organisms too, you know, they also have feelings".

hi xbojanx, no she went to uni at the end of the 1990s!!!
Maybe she wasn't in the lecture where they explained about Fungi!

I didn't realised you had studied biology, is it not possible for you to take exams without having done the vivisection then? How far into the course did you get?

[Gelert]

(Exec. summary - they're fungi, and aren't animals.)

Eukaryote taxonomy is in a state of flux. What is one day a fungus can be an animal the next. Consider the microsporidia. A friend started his PhD studying them when they were animals. He was, thus a parasitologist. Six months in, they became fungi. He thus became a mycologist, something he's not happy because us mycologists are all slightly grungy vegans.

Part of my work is at the very edges of what is fungal and what isn't. I'd go into more detail, but I won't. It might be very significant, but might not be.

Anyway.

(Most) Fungi are not animals. They are, however, more phylogenetically related to animals than they are plants. Something lost on most people as mycology has been viewed as part of botany, as xbojanx says. And within the fungi, the situation is complex given their polyphetic origin - oomycota and chytridomycota, for example. Oomycota are more related to chromistans such as red algae, and the chytrids show similarities to protozoa. The situation will clarify though, but it takes a lot of grungy vegans talking to other grungy vegan mycologists. The problem with that becomes obvious.

My (just grungy, likes cheese) boss was recently thirty-sixth or seventh author on a big paper aimed at setting consensus on the fungal tree of life. So it should get clearer with time, in case anyone is awake. Incredibly, there are people out there who won't speak to others over arguments what genus this-or-that, the sole representative of which was found by Sir Crispin Blackthorne Fforde Clyster-Pipe's teaboy on his thirteenth expedition to Nuristan and has then sat on a dusty shelf in Kew for the last eighty years should go in to. I'm sorry I just can't muster the enthusiasm let alone the venom for that shit. Rant over.

The situation regarding yeast is simpler though. Yeast can either be basidiomycetes (e.g. Cryptococcus) or ascomycetes. In this specific instance, what people call yeast - baking or brewing yeast. Saccharomyces cerevisiae are ascomycetes.

Bottom line, being ascomycetes, they are definitely fungi.

Other fungi include the Discomycetes (e.g. truffles). They are, of course the fungi that oil up and flex in the mirror with 1.5 kg dumbells.

[emm7]

Incredibly, there are people out there who won't speak to others over arguments what genus this-or-that, the sole representative of which was found by Sir Crispin Blackthorne Fforde Clyster-Pipe's teaboy on his thirteenth expedition to Nuristan and has then sat on a dusty shelf in Kew for the last eighty years should go in to.

yes this divisive scientific discovery happened while he was brewing up a nice pot of Earl Grey in a china teapot and ironing the doily for the tea-tray, half way up a godforsaken mountain As undying proof that the tradition of the Gentleman Amateur is not dead

Enlighten us Gelert, why are so many mycologists vegan?

[Asleep on a sunbeam]

so the conclusion is what was said earlier, fungi are vegan, some may turn into animals, but most won't, and yeast isn't one of the few?

(I'm very very tired, so simpleness would stop the room spinning, or at the very least, the confusion in my head *yawns*).

I guess I'll check it in the morning:)

[xbojanx]

some may turn into animals

may be re-classified to animals...

yeast used in baking and generally for eating is vegan.

P.S.
I was mycologist when I became vegan - all those tasty mushrooms were so better than anything else ...but stopped being that like 10 years ago...couldn't handle scientific way of modern slavery

[emm7]

cool xbojanx didn't know you are an ex-mycologist!
Why did you leave that job, was it to do with office politics or did you just want a complete change of direction?

[Gelert]

some may turn into animals

may be re-classified to animals...

yeast used in baking and generally for eating is vegan.

P.S.
I was mycologist when I became vegan - all those tasty mushrooms were so better than anything else ...but stopped being that like 10 years ago...couldn't handle scientific way of modern slavery

Aye, reclassification indeed. We've given up on it all and show a crackly film to undergrads, which classifies slime mould as part animal, part veg, part mineral.