Bone char sugar debate

[anmllvr]

PETA has designated a group of candies as being vegan. Does this mean that they don't use sugar refined with bone char? This whole bone char refined sugar really confuses me. Is there any way to know who uses and who doesn't use it? I have been avoiding all sugar which Im sure is good for me but it limits a lot of the things that I would like to use..eg. teriyaki sauce, sweet and sour sauce. Any ideas?
Thanks!!

[Erin Pavlina]

Sugar is a complicated issue. Here's what I know:

Most of the world uses beet sugar. In the United States, west of the Mississippi, cane sugar is more often used.

Many companies use both beet and cane sugar and therefore cannot tell you which batches of their products were made with beet vs. cane.

There are no animal products IN cane sugar, it is merely refined using a filter that contains bone char, a disgusting practice, to be sure.

If you are a person who defines vegan as having animal products IN an item, then cane sugar is vegan.

If you are a person who defines vegan as a product made without the use of animal products during any stage, then cane sugar is not vegan. Know what I mean?

Most leaders in the vegan community say that for all intents and purposes, cane sugar is vegan. But purists will not want to eat cane sugar because of the refining process. There's nothing wrong with eating or not eating sugar. It's just a matter of which definition you use for yourself.

I believe that one of the reasons PETA uses sugar, brown sugar, and powdered sugar in their cookbooks is because in the UK (where PETA is located) beet sugar is used predominantly so it's not an issue for them.

It's us in the United States that have the cane vs beet situation.

My feeling on the matter is this... I will avoid cane sugar, unless I'm at a restaurant and the only thing that makes an item non-vegan is the sugar. Then I'll sometimes eat it. I will occasionally buy something with sugar as an ingredient if that's the only thing that makes it questionable.

You simply have to decide where you stand on the issue and be consistent. I hope that cleared things up. It's quite complicated.

[HimuraLain]

But what about whether the vegan candy uses sugar that was filtered with bone char? Since you said that PETA calls sugar vegan, did they overlook this? I assumed they meant that no bone char was used when I saw the list, and started eating some of those things again. Does anybody here know for sure?

[Erin Pavlina]

You'd have the call the companies directly to find out if they use cane or beet sugar. Likely, they use a combination or beet sugar. The odds are in your favor. But, yeah, you have to find out from the company directly.

PETA probably considers all sugar vegan. So you should assume that the candies on the list may have some cane sugar and some won't.

[Mystican]

I was recently talking with someone about suitable ingredient substitutes to use in making chocolate fudge, and I mentioned sugar and the problem of bone char refining. Well, she was puzzled, hadn't ever heard of that before, so I thought that I should do a little web (re)searching, for her sake and for mine.

Here's one of the pages I came across that helped to explain the issue: Bone Char discussion - http://www.sucrose.com/bonechar.html

Here's another helpful page, an article from the Vegetarian Journal titled "Sugar and Other Sweeteners" - http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj97mar/973sugar.htm

Erik

P.S. My first post to the forums. Greetings to everyone out there, and many thanks to all those responsible for making VegFamily.com another favorite in my list of vegan bookmarks :-)

[alexis]

A bit off topic but read this...

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/top/story/0,4136,23102,00.html?

the US sugar people(Can't find a better way of saying it) are threatening to cut off funding for WHO because WHO said a healthy diet should consist of less than 10% sugar daily...now the 'sugar people' want WHO to pull the report or they'll cut off funding...how nice of them...:mad:

[VOW]

Unless things have dramatically changed in the past 40 years, sugar beets used to be a major crop in California. This beet sugar was marketed by Spreckles. Sugar beets are ideal in California, because the sugar can be marketed to humans, and the "leftovers" from processing are marketed as cattle feed.

(at least, that was the story we were told in fourth grade, at our field trip to the sugar beet farm...)


~VOW