Thanks to Dr Natarajan Viswanathan, University of Illinois in Chicago, an ardent devotee of Kanchi Acharyas who shared this important information. While this article focuses mainly on US consumers, the problem in India on white sugar is slightly different – they seem to use sulphuric acid to bleach to attain white color. While that does not involve animal product but extremely bad for our health. It is important to be aware of this and avoid as much as possible. Turbinado sugar is available everywhere and let us at least not use these kind of sugar for doing neiveidhyam, for swami-related needs. Honestly, I was so ignorant of this fact fully. While I knew that animal bones are used, I did not know that it is heavily used in US…What was more shocking is the fine brown sugar which I use it almost on a daily basis for abishekam….I did not know that they simply add molasses to achieve brown color….
Thanks mama for the important share…
Following text are from authentic sources from the web:
Refined sugar — the kind that’s added to coffee, cookie dough and cake batter — is made from either sugarcane or sugar beets. The two have near-identical nutritional facts and tastes, and they are used about equally in the States. But, their refining process is different. To manufacture table sugar from sugarcane, sugarcane stalks are crushed to separate the juice from the pulp. The juice is processed and heated to crystalize, and is then filtered and bleached with bone char, which results in sugar’s pristine white color.
Bone char, which is used to process sugar, is made from the bones of cattle from Afghanistan, Argentina, India, and Pakistan. The bones are sold to traders in Scotland, Egypt, and Brazil who then sell them back to the U.S. sugar industry. The European Union and the USDA heavily regulate the use of bone char. Only countries that are deemed BSE-free can sell the bones of their cattle for this process. Bone char—often referred to as natural carbon—is widely used by the sugar industry as a decolorizing filter, which allows the sugar cane to achieve its desirable white color. Other types of filters involve granular carbon or an ion-exchange system rather than bone char.
Bone char is also used in other types of sugar. Brown sugar is created by adding molasses to refined sugar, so companies that use bone char in the production of their regular sugar also use it in the production of their brown sugar. Confectioner’s sugar—refined sugar mixed with cornstarch—made by these companies also involves the use of bone char. Fructose may, but does not typically, involve a bone-char filter. Supermarket brands of sugar (e.g., Giant, Townhouse, etc.) obtain their sugar from several different refineries, making it impossible to know whether it has been filtered with bone char.
If you want to avoid all refined sugars, we recommend alternatives such as Sucanat and turbinado sugar, which are not filtered with bone char. Additionally, beet sugar—though normally refined—never involves the use of bone char and Edward & Sons Trading Company has developed a vegan confectioner’s sugar which should be available in health food stores soon.
It would be virtually impossible for PETA to maintain information on the refining process used for the sugar in every product. We encourage you to contact companies directly to ask about the source of their sugar.
The following companies do not use bone-char filters:
Michigan Sugar Company
2600 S. Euclid Ave.
Bay City, MI 48706
Tel.: 989.686.0161
Fax: 989.671.3695
Web: www.michigansugar.com
Florida Crystals Corporation
P.O. Box 471
West Palm Beach, FL 33480
Tel.: 877-835-2828
Fax: 516-366-5200
Web: www.floridacrystals.com
SuperValu
SUPERVALU Corporate Headquarters
East View Innovation Center
7075 Flying Cloud Drive
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
Tel.: 952-828-4000
Web.: www.supervalu.ie/
Western Sugar
Western Sugar is a subsidiary of Tate & Lyle (formerly Domino sugar) which does use bone-char filters. However, Western Sugar makes only beet sugar, which does not use bone-char filters.
7555 E. Hampton Ave., Ste. 600
Denver, CO 80210
Tel.: 303-830-3939
Fax: 303-830-3941
Web: www.westernsugar.com
Wholesome!
14141 Southwest Freeway, Suite 160
Sugar Land, TX 77478
Tel.: 800-680-1896
Web.: www.WholesomeSweet.com
The following companies do use bone-char filters. Contact them and encourage them to adopt the use of humane alternatives to bone-char filters:
C&H Sugar Company
2300 Contra Costa Blvd., Ste. 600
Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
Tel.: 925-688-1731
Fax: 925-822-1061
E-Mail: consumer.affairs@chsugar.com
Web: www.chsugar.com
Savannah Foods
P.O. Box 335
Savannah, GA 31402
Tel.: 912-234-1261
Tate & Lyle North American Sugars Inc. (formerly Domino Sugar)
1100 Key Hwy. W.
Baltimore, MD 21230
Tel.: 1-800-638-1590
Fax: 410-783-8640
Imperial Sugar
P.O. Box 9
Sugarland, TX 77487
Tel.: 1-800-727-8427
Web: www.imperialsugar.com
Refined Sugars Inc.
1 Federal St.
Yonkers, NY 10702
Tel.: 914-963-2400
Fax: 914-963-1030
Categories: Announcements
Very nice at last u brought the truth of commercial white sugar.i am fighting not to use any adulterated materials for Abhisekhams/Tihrumanjanam etc no one bothered, ex: Milk pouche mixed with several milk ie, heated cooled three days before, mixed several milk,Urea,milk powder etc,Vibhuthi made out of Pady husk burnt,Paper ashes scented,No pure gingerly oil,Kungamam made out of chemical except of KANCHI kamatchi temple pockets,seiakai made out of tamarind seed powder+chemicals Haldi or Manjal: not pure one Rose water ordinary tsp water+some drops of commercial aromatics At last Chandanam In TN sandal wood logs not easily avl 1 kg apps Rs.12000/-,kadhi sell dried sandal wood which won’t give pure flagerance to get 5 kg of pure ground Chandanam needs manpower. Time etc, to avoid this this we designed a sandal paste making m/c exclusively for temple usages, no demand in TN except few in Kerala, even TTD has more surplus man power they use human ground paste in the olden ways,Smillarly with the blessing of Perriyava we made electro mech temple bells, which was copied made with cheap material by the traders using brass ice an bells not maintained by temples,as devotees wish to donate cheap items to temples,these bells do not give OMKARAM sound which comes only in pure bronze bells which has 95% of copper.
IN this regard only temple authorities. Gurukkals, Mutt heads must create proper awareness to devotees not to use adulterated materials in temples at least.
It is pathetic most Karnataka temples uses either powdered sugar or white sugar bleached & mixed bone char sugar.can use Palmsugar instead of this.
Now let me see what KanchiMutt pontiffs going to do regarding creating awareness to devotees.?
Please see link regarding Sugar in India:
http://www.bwcindia.org/Web/Awareness/LearnAbout/Sugar.html
Very nice and informative article. The sugar industry in India should reduce sulphur ppm to reduce respiratory disorders.
Thanks to Mahesh in bringing out this message to the community, Shri MahaPeriya devotees and others. We should not use bone-char purified sugar to make prasadams and other devotional activities. Costco has organic sugar and also raw sugar that are not processed with bone-char.
Thanks for the information.
A kind of sugar that is available in ALDI says in the package that it is bone char free.
If it says explicitly the it is ok…just because you see the word “organic”, it means nothing..
Thank you very much. I have been using only Turbinado sugar since 30 years unknowingly. Periyava Anugraham.
How about organic sugar that we buy from costco or sams club.????
Thank you Mahesh for this information. This means that almost every sweet product we consume disqualifies from the menu. This is also true for many products sold off the shelf.
some examples are
Rennet in Cheese. Many vegetarian Indians are unaware of the rennet present in Cheese sold in stores. This translates into all the foods made using cheese like Pizzas, etc. (In India Amul cheese does not use Rennet)
Eggs and gelatin in Chocolate. – Many brands of chocolates contain eggs and gelatin. Ghirardelli is one of them. When I have brought this to many peoples notice, feedback has been, we cannot go to that extent to check as long as we dont eat directly. This is also bought and distributed to people unknowingly in India.
Same case with cakes also.
Safest is to source required ingredients through known sources and make these things at home.
I am not sure if you can use this blog to spread more awareness to help propagate this.
Thank you for the information. It is very much appreciable, peop