Is sugar vegetarian?

[Diceman]

If God had intended us to be vegetarians, he wouldn’t have made animals out of meat :).

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–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

[Diceman]

I forgot to mention: Have you tried the tactic that people use when encountering Macintosh computer owners (which is practically a cult itself :P)? You just humor them and nod passively to whatever they say.

Seriously, if your friend is really getting annoying, you might have to put her in her place. Politely but firmly mention that you are happy with your dietary habits and are not interested in the sales pitch. Try to agree to disagree.

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–It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

[Greg_Charles]

I’ve also heard the story of white sugar being filtered through bone. It was either from Cecil himself, or from his San Diego clone Mathew Alice. (Mathew Alice writes the same sort of column as Cecil, and is generally very reliable.) In the same article, it was mentioned that one of the “natural flavorings” in many catsups is meat juices. It’s hard to be pure in such a complex world.

[SoMoMom]

Don’t even get me started on “natural flavorings”! As a person that suffers from food allergies, let me say that the term should be out-lawed. It would save a lot of heart-ache and pain.

[jab1]

Originally posted by Scoop:
She says gelatin is animal bones as well, which I’ve heard but not been sure about.

Your friend cannot therefore use cameras or have her picture taken, unless a digital camera is used. Why? Gelatin is an essential component of photographic film. Think about that the next time some Hollywood type claims to be a vegetarian. How many cows died to produce his/her last film, I wonder?

She also cannot use certain cosmetics, ointments, lozenges and any medication that comes in capsules. Read what Britannica has to say about it.

Pardon me while I go have a hamburger.

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>< DARWIN >
__L___L

[elelle]

Jab: Medications are sometimes available in non-gelatin “Vegicaps”.

[jab1]

I didn’t know that.

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>< DARWIN >
__L___L

[Spoke]

Padeye wrote:

Handy, have you ever heard the song Mary Moon? The chorus ends with “she don’t eat meat, but she sure like the bone.”

That reminds me of a lyric from the old Rank and File song “Amanda Ruth”:

She burned her biscuits and her gravy was strange;
Can’t fry a chicken in a microwave range;
Her salt’s tasty, her sugar’s sweet;
No, she can’t cook, but she’s got something to eat!

[/crudeness]

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“Every time you think, you weaken the nation!” --M. Howard (addressing his brother, C. Howard).

[femtosecond]

A cite from the sugar industry: http://www.sucrose.com/bonechar.html

In the past a material called ‘bone char’ was used extensively to remove colour from raw cane sugar in the refining process. Modern technology has largely replaced bone char decolourisation but it is still used in a few refineries so one cannot be categoric about refined cane sugar being suitable for all people’s points of view. It is not used in making white beet sugar and it is not used in making raw cane sugar.

Where bone char is still used, it is prepared by almost incinerating animal bones to leave activated carbon - a bit like making wood charcoal. [The refiners did not and ordinarily do not use wood charcoal to do the decolourisation because it is too fragile and would break up in service.]

From a bone char producer: http://www.ebonex.com/b_cha.htm

Subsequent to this discovery, bone charcoal became widely used in the sugar refining industry during the 19th century to remove color from raw sugar solution. Indeed, bone charcoal has continued to be used for this purpose over the years in many countries throughout the world. Today, bone charcoal is still the prime adsorbent used in the sugar refining industry.

And on the International Vegetarian Union page: Sugar and other sweeteners in the USA: do they contain animal products?

Almost all cane sugar refineries require the use of a specific filter to decolourise the sugar and absorb inorganic material from it. This whitening process occurs towards the end of the sugar refining procedure. The filter may be either bone char, granulated carbon, or an ion exchange system. […]
Many cane refineries use bone char. Domino, the largest sugar manufacturer in the U.S., uses bone char in the filtration process. The cane refineries of Savannah Foods, the second largest sugar manufacturer, also use bone char. California and Hawaian Sugar employs bone char filters in addition to granular carbon and ion exchange filters.

Originally posted by CatInHat
The easiest way to resolve the sugar question is to look at a bag of sugar and see if it says “parve” or “pareve”.

Even if the bone char hadn’t undergone a significant enough change to be considered as a new substance (d’var chadash), it’s used only as a filter and doesn’t leave detectable traces in the sugar. Most (not only Jewish) food ingredient laws don’t even apply here.

Originally posted by Greg Charles
In the same article, it was mentioned that one of the “natural flavorings” in many catsups is meat juices.

It’s quite possible to hide that in your natural flavors, this thread Fruit2O and “Naturalness” contains their definition. “Broad” would be an understatement, and since you don’t have to to declare their ingredients, there have been such rumors (denied, at least by Heinz). Still though, ketchup may contain other stuff like sodium inosinate flavor enhancer, likely made from meat extract. A thread: Beef blood in ketchup - Ironically, McDonald’s uses meat-derived flavoring on the fries, not (I don’t vouch for that) in the ketchup.

[Mangetout]

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/s1/sucrose.asp has this to say:

The cane or beets are crushed, and the juice, after treatment with lime to neutralize acids, is evaporated in vacuum pans that permit the process to be carried out at relatively low temperatures. The brownish liquid obtained, called molasses, evaporates further, leaving the sugar, brownish in color, which is dissolved in water, treated with animal charcoal to remove the color resulting from the presence of impurities, and recrystallized.
[sup](emphasis mine)[/sup]

If the possibility of animal chacoal having been used presents a problem to your conscience as a vegetarian, most* cane (‘brown’) sugars should be OK (*there are some that are actually white sugar coloured with added molasses) - look for ‘unrefined’ on the pack and you should be OK.

Gelatin is indeed an animal product - for culinary use you can get vegetarian alternatives which are good (usually based on alginates and starches) - if you’re looking for a veggie alternative to fruit flavoured jelly (AKA ‘jell-o’ to 'merkins), you could try this:
mix two level tablespoons of tapioca starch into a little water in a pan, add a pint of fruit juice or cordial(diluted to taste) and gently heat, stirring all the time; when it thickens and the colour changes (it will go ‘clear’), pour it into a bowl and leave to set in a cool place. You may need to experiment with the amount of starch - if it just doesn’t seem to be thickening, you can add a little more, but mix it with a little water first - you can also do this with ordinary cornflour(cornstarch), but it doesn’t quite go as clear as with tapioca starch.