11 Items Weirdly Made From Animal Parts

Turning down a cheeseburger is one thing; truly abstaining from all products containing animal parts is a wee bit trickier. Hugh Ryan reveals 11 surprising everyday items made from an animal ingredient for the Daily Beast.

1. Fabric softener: The reason your clothes are so Downy soft? Dihydrogenated tallow dimethyl ammonium chloride—basically horse or sheep fat—coats them.
2. Cigarettes: The idea of lung cancer not enough to make you quit? How about the knowledge that some brands contain pigs' blood (porcine hemoglobin) in their filters?

3. Beer and wine: Your drink may contain tiny amounts of isinglass—ground-up sturgeon or cod bladders that clarify beverages.
4. Sugar: There's a reason why it's as white as bone. Natural charcoal, aka bone char made from horses and cows, is used as a filter to bleach it.
5. Lipstick and nail polish: That shimmer has to come from somewhere. In the case of many cosmetics, the source is herring scales.

Click here for the complete list.
(More animal stories.)