A bagel in the morning toasted, dry. Tomato sandwich on a bagel with Vegenaise. Those were two of my favorite snacks up until a couple weeks ago. When I noticed Trader Joe’s bagels had gotten a little fatter I was a bit happy, they even felt softer than before. Picking up the two packs, one sesame and one everything, for the week I noticed something about the label that was different but thought nothing of it.

A day or two later my wife is opening the bag and she says, “These bagels have honey in them.”  My first though was no way, they have a vegan logo on the label. Looking at the package the V logo on the front label is missing and honey is listed in the ingredients.

With this change bagels may be unavailable to the vegan, at least in the Nashville area. Panera bagels contain L-Cysteine from an animal source and now Trader Joe’s, the once lone vegan holdout, has jumped ship. I’ve only checked the sesame and everything varieties of Trader Joe’s bagels but there seems to be a supplier change and possibly all varieties now contain honey. This  may only apply to the Southeast Trader Joe’s supply as Trader Joe’s uses a different baker for each area of the country to keep their supplies fresh.

You can comment on the change Trader Joe’s has made at this link.

If anyone knows of a vegan bagel please let me know.

UPDATE: After checking, Trader Joe’s Whole Wheat Bagels are still vegan.  I asked a Trader Joe’s employee who is familiar with them and said a new supplier was chosen about a month prior for all bagels except the whole wheat.  The new supplier uses honey in all recipes.  The supplier for the whole wheat variety is the same from two changes ago.

*Possibly only in the Southeast/Atlanta region.

UPDATE: As of June 1, 2011, Panera Bread has changed bagel providers and now serves a tasty vegan bagel without animal sourced L-Cysteine. Go get ’em!

We made our way out to the new Trader Joe’s in Green Hills Friday morning.   The parking lot was running over into the Walgreen’s parking lot next door and police were directing traffic.  Someone had so conveniently decided to setup shop in an RV in the lot and had in the process taken up 8-10 parking spaces and made it harder for everyone to get around the lot.  Once inside I realized this was probably the smallest Trader Joe’s I had been in.  We picked up a few of our regular items: pita, chips and chocolate covered espresso beans, which I could not find and had to ask someone to help only to find out they didn’t know where they were either.   Of course, there’s no wine section but, while small, the beer section is available.  I’ll pick up a new Hefewiessen on my next trip.   I can only guess they don’t have all of their items stocked yet as many things seemed to be missing that I usually find.

For those of you who don’t get into making your own hummus Trader Joe’s has a good selection at good prices, and all vegan unlike some varieties that contain cream.  The chipotle and the horseradish are my favorites.   My wife thinks their cocoa is some of the best available but has gone up in price so it isn’t quite the deal it once was.  The raw almonds you’ll find at Trader Joe’s are also unblanched unlike other raw almonds you find now.

Since Trader Joe’s is only taking up half of the space of the old Wild Oats, the lack of wine being sold and the recent closing of yn at The Hill Center, I can only guess someone will be looking into opening a wine store in the other half that is now for lease.