I was looking at an energy drink at the checkout line at CVS. I read this:
Sweetened with all natural imported organic evaporated cane juice crystals
Isn’t that just sugar?
If not how is it different?
Yes, it’s sugar. I assume the label was written in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek style?
No it was just printed in normal letters. The font size was the same as other ingredients.
It’s one of several “disguises” for what is nothing more than sugar. It’s put in this term as to appeal to people’s health consciousness (in a disingenious fashion).
It does at least mean that they’re going to the expense of using cane sugar instead of the cheaper (but identical) beet sugar.
It ought to be a little more flavorful than refined white cane sugar, as the natural molasses hasn’t been washed out. It’s a subtle difference, but one that I appreciate in certain applications (though I don’t know about “energy drinks”). The sweetness will be about the same, and as mentioned the nutritional and health profile is essentially identical.
For example, I just went into my kitchen and picked up this box of “Go Lean” instant hot cereal made by Kashi. Kashi is considered a health-conscious company and their products are marketed to appeal to health conscious consumers.
So, taking a look at the ingredient list, you can’t find a single mention of the words, “sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, sucrose, glucose, dextrose, fructose”; or any of the other commonly found terms for sugar. However, in the nutrition facts section, it lists the serving size as having 7 grams of sugar per serving. A closer look at the ingredients reveal things like “evaporated cane juice, brown rice syrup and honey”.
Your body doesn’t know the difference between these substances and the more commonly found sugar-substances I referred to earlier in this post. It’s a gimmick intended to boost sales among health-conscious but somewhat naive consumers (for those who buy these products because of such labeling).
Kashi is owned by Kelloggs. 'Nuff said.
I can’t remember the product, but I remember seeing “evaporated white grape juice” as one of the ingredients. Grape flavored sugar I would imagine.
In a way that makes sense though. The people that they market this stuff think there’s a difference even though both are 99+% pure sucrose. (No really, there are people that think there’s a difference even though both are really pure. I’ve read nonsense about how you can’t caramelize “Beet sugar” for example.)
I posted this OP before (lazy, did not search, but you can find it). I saw nothing to contradict my impression it was marketing BS to disguise the use of sucrose.
The one contra argument that had any substance was that (supposedly) vegans/kosher people might have problems with white sugar (refined) because of some use of bone-derived charcoal in its purification. I’m savvy enough to know that the vegan freak fringe is much smaller than the “natural is better” sucker crowd, so that the euphemism was, AFAICT, mainly aimed at the credulous organic/natural seeking crowd to disguise the use of chemically-identical sucrose.
Well it is natural and organic. I am skeptical of their benefits. I owuld feel freer to express my self in IMHO
nm
One strange aspect of grape products is the legality of their use in the wine industry. Depends upon country, but this is certainly an issue here. The only allowed ingredients in wine are grapes, and a very very limited set of chemicals as preservatives. Nothing else. Even if the ingredients are permitted they would be required to appear on the label - and thus the label would read “grapes, sugar, water” which isn’t going to endear itself to many consumers of fine wine.
So, want to add some sugar to your process, perhaps to rescue it, or even want to add some water? Cannot be done. Not legal ingredients. Unless they come from grapes. So there is an industry in grape sugar that has a documented provenance. And the water that was removed to make the sugar? Valuable too, and trucked about the countryside as a legal ingredient in wine.
(Bolding mine)
In certain regions, like Europe, certain words like “organic” are defined to mean “meets certain requirements” as opposed to general marketing words like “all natural”.
Organic means that it was grown and manufactured according to certain rules to minimize harm to the environment and the product and the human body. If the company used organic according to those definitions, then although it’s still sugar, it has been grown without mineral fertilizer, without using pesticides or herbicides, without the use of GM. It has been processed without the use of certain chemicals, maybe using more mechanical methods. Although it’s still sugar re: your teeth and waistline, it’s better for the environment and adds a little less chemicals than normal sugar.
“imported” is important for some people because they try to buy local: why transport apples from New Zealand if they grow in your region? Why send shrimps from the North Sea all the way to Spain for shelling and then back because of labour costs? And so on. So buying locally produced stuff over imported from far away stuff is one method to reduce carbon foot print.
“Evaporated” also tells you the method used for processing: not chemicals to separate the crystals from the syrup, but evaporation.