Yes that is a lame title. Send us your suggestion for a better one and we will change it pronto.
We get many, many questions and requests. We would like to address them but our scope since inception was to make a useful list. However we read through every request, suggestion, and comment. So this our small attempt to help give some insight into why we do (or more often don't do) what we do (or don't do). Peace.
What does nong stand for?
No Onions No Garlic, no problem!
Hey can we eat XXXXX (where XXXXX is almost any product)?
The answer is we don't know. We also would really like to know. The idea is that if everyone that comes to this site were to just call or email the manufacturer of just one product (and we get hundreds of hits a day), that would mean we would get hundreds of new products a day! Wowser that would be awesome. We keep looking, you keep looking and we can share our lists here. Win, win. Again we don't know, but we really, really, really want to know. Help us!
I took your advice and sent you a product to add and it's not on the list. What gives?
First off thank you so much for adding to the list. You are awesome! You are the reason the world can be a great a place. We love you! That being said there are three main reasons you don't see your product on the list here are they are in order of likelihood:
We just have not got around to updating the list. It happens roughly every two months depending on life. Again remember you are awesome!
It maybe that after you sent your request, someone called up or emailed (or the product changed) and we got an email with a contact telling us that unfortunately it is not nong.
It maybe that several people have said that it is not nong (but there is no evidence from the company).
It maybe it is not a food product, so outside the scope of this list.
Again we love you!
How do we know for sure something is nong?
Everyone has different metrics for this. We settled on some kind of correspondence (scanned letter, email, txt) from the manufacturer with contact info. That eliminates most issues for us. We will also add to the list if we read the ingredients and they are nong. However if issues arise here (ie spices) then we go back to the correspondence.
How do you decide what gets on the list?
The gold standard is correspondence from the manufacturer, this trumps everything. If we get two contradictory emails on a product we take the one with the latest date. If there is no letter then we look up the ingredients - either by physically looking at the package or finding it on line and checking the ingredients. If people give contradictory recommendations (it's nong put it on the list, no no take it off that list it has xxxx), we go with the majority and hope someone will contact the manufacturer and settle it once and for all. When we started this we were doing the calling, but it got to be too much (or we got lazy, you decide).
How do you decide what gets taken off the list?
When someone tells us something on the list has changed and should be removed, we will try and verify that (which may take some time) either by looking at the ingredients on a product or contacting the company. If many people say something should be yanked we take it off the list and in our copious spare time try and verify it later.
Why don't you also make sure that xxx is not in any of these items?
Some people don't eat ginger other don't eat asafoetida and the list may go on. Right now we are really focused on no onions, no garlic, and no animal products (meat, eggs, gelatin, animal derived cheeses). These lines many times become blurry, we do our best with your help. If you feel strongly about this and start our own list, let us know and we will link to it on the main page.
Why don't you also list restaurants?
We are really just focused on products. However if you make a site or list of restaurants we would be more than happy to put a link to it on the main page. Let us know.