Is sugar vegan? Wait, sugar? Really? Is there anything that we don’t try shove animal
parts in? Is nothing sacred anymore? Seriously.
Hi it’s Emily from bite size vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. The question of sugar’s
veganness is one that I have received many-a-time, especially recently. This concern usually
comes from the already vegan-conscious, as what non-vegan is checking into the potential
animal ingredients in seemingly un-animally things, really?
Well the answer to this question is more complicated than a simple yes or no as it depends on a
number of factors. One of these is how you define the term “vegan." if you are speaking
purely from a food ingredient standpoint then yes sugar is vegan. It does not contain animal
products. However, if you're coming from a process perspective, then most commercial
cane sugar is not vegan.
That leads us to the second factor of determining the veganness of sugar. And that is the sugar's
source. There are two sources of commercial sugar: sugar cane and sugar beets. Beet sugar
is always vegan but cane sugar is sometimes filtered through a substance called bone char.
And just what is bone char? Well it's literally the charred bones of animals, cows in the
case of the sugar industry. According to Jeffrey Robinson, technical director of American sugar
refining, to create bone char, bones are sun-dried and incinerated for 12 hours at more than
700 degrees Celsius. During the burning process, all organic matter that may be present—including
viruses, bacteria, and protein—is destroyed, leaving only an inert granular substance that
is 10 percent elemental carbon and 90 percent calcium hydroxyapatite.
So why the heck are we using the charred bones of cows on our sugar? Well for some reason,
we like our sugar to be white and sugar naturally has a brown tint to it. So, many decades ago
we clever humans devised a way to use the charred bones of animals to take the color
out of our sugar. Bone char acts like a crude filter and is most often used first in cane
sugar refining. It is what's called a 'fixed bed adsorption' filter and is the most efficient
filter for removing colorants, most frequently amino acids, carboxylic acids, phenols, and
ash. The sugar then passes through other filters during the refining process, like activated
charcoal, or an ion exchange system.
So just how much cow is in your sugar? Well according to Paul Caulkins, the corporate
quality assurance manager of imperial/savannah foods, very little bone char can be obtained
from a single cow "since only the dense bones of the animal, such as the pelvic bones, can
be used." in fact, he says the average 1,500 pound cow will produce only 9 pounds of bone
char. With addition figures from Caulkins, Jeanne Yacoubou, the research director at
the vegetarian resource group ran some figures and concluded that the bones of almost 7,800
cattle are needed to produce the bone char for one commercial sugar filter. You can read
through her calculations in her full article, which I've linked to in the blog post for
this video, which you can find in the video description below along with other further
resources on this topic.
Now as a quick note, it’s important to also acknowledge the environmental impact of the sugar
cane industry. While I’m not going to go into an extensive breakdown, as that is another video
entirely, the sugar cane industry, like any agricultural commodity, has led to water pollution
from fertilizers and effluents, industrial waste, soil erosion and degradation, habitat
loss, and the death of countless marine species. Some of the most bio diverse regions on the
planet have been cleared for sugarcane production, particularly the threatened tropical ecosystems
near the equator. A 2004 report by World Wildlife Fund, shows that sugar may be responsible
for more biodiversity loss than any other crop. I’ve included a link to this full
report and one from the food and agriculture organization of the united nations in the
blog post for this video, again linked in the video description below.
So should vegans avoid sugar at all costs? Well honestly this depends on you. Personally,
I believe that we should always be fully educated and aware of where our food comes from and
how it is made, particularly when it is produced at the expense of others' lives. However,
I would shy away from focusing on the bone char issue too intensely and instead place
my energy towards avoiding and eradicating the main animal products industry.
When we are no longer slaughtering 150 billion sentient beings every year for our consumption,
we won't be so pressed to find new and different ways to profitably use their byproducts. This
is also my response for products that while vegan ingredient-wise will state they were
produced in a facility that processes milk, eggs or some other animal product. The solution isn’t necessarily boycotting
these potential cross-contaminations but stopping the dairy, egg and meat industries as a whole.
If we aren’t senselessly killing animals and stealing their secretions, we won’t
have to worry so much about it getting in our food.
In their extensive FAQ section, the nonprofit Vegan Outreach highlights the importance this
focus has on creating new vegans stating, "we recommend that vegans concentrate their
attention on the most obvious animal ingredients and the true meaning of veganism. In our experience,
concentrating on processing or on trace ingredients can make a vegan diet appear exceedingly difficult
and dissuade people from adopting it."
Now of course this doesn't meant that we avoid confronting every aspect of the animal products
industry and our continued exploitation of other beings, nor that we simply don't make
any effort to eliminate products that aren't produced with compassion. I'm simply saying
that our focus should be where we can make the greatest impact.
Luckily there are numerous sugar options that are 100% vegan. As I stated earlier, any beet
sugar is always bone char free as beet sugar requires as less extensive filtering process
that never includes bone char. Unfortunately most mainstream sugar industries will source
part of their sugar from beets and part of their sugar from cane. However, all certified organic sugars do not utiize
bone char, nor do natural raw sugars like Turbinado sugar such as sugar in the raw.
It's important however to make the distinction that brown sugar is not the same as natural sugar.
Brown sugar is simply refined white sugar with simply molassas added for colour and flavour.
There are also sugar companies that on the whole do not use bone char. And of course
organic sugars are going to be using a more sustainable method of agriculture not involving
pesticides. Please refer to the blog post for this video linked in the description below
for a list of bone char free brands and other resources.
Now I'd love to hear from you. Do you avoid bone char derived sugar? Or is this not even
something on your radar? Let me know in the comments!
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Pour some sugar on me. But only if it's vegan.