White Sugar
Kareema Dean
I read something a week or so back here that said that white sugar was
processed with Animal bones???? Did I misunderstand? I am an ethical vegan
who would like to avoid any process with animal products in it... any
other "hidden" thangs? I also heard that Raisins and Peanut butter were
toxic (because of the processes) if they were not organic... Are these
urban mythology...??
Thanks for the clue, gang!
Peace,
kareema
De...@underground.irhe.upenn.edu
gary gnu
Suzanne Jacobs
>I read something a week or so back here that said that white sugar was
>processed with Animal bones???? Did I misunderstand? I am an ethical vegan
>who would like to avoid any process with animal products in it... any
>other "hidden" thangs? I also heard that Raisins and Peanut butter were
>toxic (because of the processes) if they were not organic... Are these
>urban mythology...??
A netter wrote to C & H a while ago about the sugar question. They
said that, yes, they do use animal bones. Incredible. I keep
kosher, and so called a well-known rabbi about this. He said no
way, but I gotta assume C & H must know about its own processing.
The only thing I know about peanuts isn't really related to processing...
Peanuts, if left too long, get a mold on them that is toxic. It's
called aflatoxin. Not too long ago Consumer Reports did an evaluation
of peanut butter, and, among other things, tested the evaluated
brands for aflatoxin. Of course, they mostly just tested crummy, sugar-
laden brands. The only natural one they tested was Smuckers. (Or maybe
it was just the only natural one that didn't have aflatoxins.) It is
not available west of the Rockies (I called Smuckers), but I see you're
in Pennsylvania...
As a funky aside, somebody told me there's an Agatha Christie mystery in
which the death is traced to peanut mold poisoning.
I don't know of any problems with raisins, but I'm all for purchasing
organic stuff anyway.
Suzanne
just writing as I best remember these things
If someone has better info, please correct me.
sr...@hamp.hampshire.edu
s...@palm.com (Suzanne Jacobs) writes:
>>de...@underground.irhe.upenn.edu (Kareema Dean)
>>I read something a week or so back here that said that white sugar was
>>processed with Animal bones???? Did I misunderstand? I am an ethical vegan
>
>
>said that, yes, they do use animal bones. Incredible. I keep
As far as I know, animal bones are used in refining all sugar, therefore, all
"refined" sugars are linked to cruelty...this includes corn syrup, sugar, and
certain ingredients ending in "-tose" are refined sugars.
The most popular brand of unrefined sugar, or at least, sweetener made without
cruelty, is Sucanat, which is derived from fruit sugars, i think.
Adam
Rich Young
[...]
>The only thing I know about peanuts isn't really related to processing...
>Peanuts, if left too long, get a mold on them that is toxic. It's
>called aflatoxin.
Close, but not quite. The mold is called Aspergillus flavus and
it manufactures a compound called aflatoxin (A-spergillus FLA-vus
toxin). Also, it's not confined to peanuts...the mold will grow on
many grains as well.
-Rich Young
(The views expressed herein do not reflect those of Eastman Kodak Company Inc.)
Thomas D. Orth
|> In article <931110042...@palm.com> s...@palm.com (Suzanne Jacobs) writes:
|>
|> [...]
|>
|> >The only thing I know about peanuts isn't really related to processing...
|> >Peanuts, if left too long, get a mold on them that is toxic. It's
|> >called aflatoxin.
|>
|> Close, but not quite. The mold is called Aspergillus flavus and
|> it manufactures a compound called aflatoxin (A-spergillus FLA-vus
|> toxin). Also, it's not confined to peanuts...the mold will grow on
|> many grains as well.
risks, in which things like smoking, hang-gliding, etcetera were listed and the
number of days your life was shortened by engaging in the activities a certain
amount. Peanut Butter was up there, presumably because of some mold or something.
Any explanations?
Tom Orth
Argonne National Laboratory
or...@dublin.aps1.anl.gov
Speaking for myself
Mike Eisele
>
>
> As far as I know, animal bones are used in refining all sugar, therefore,
> all
> "refined" sugars are linked to cruelty...this includes corn syrup, sugar,
> and
> certain ingredients ending in "-tose" are refined sugars.
> The most popular brand of unrefined sugar, or at least, sweetener made
> without
> cruelty, is Sucanat, which is derived from fruit sugars, i think.
>
> Adam
>
Sucanat is an urefined sugar cane product. It consists of evaporated sugar
cane juice. There is a product called Fruitsource which is made from fruit. I
understand that it's better than sugar, but more expensive.
...Mike
NO MODERATION OF R.F.V.
--
Rich Young
I'm reasonably certain that Aflatoxin is what they were talking
about...on the other hand, how many people have you heard of lately
who have died of peanut butter poisoning? Consumer Reports did an
article on this a while ago and concluded that, although the risk
is not a mathematical zero, it might as well be for all practical
purposes. By the way, I believe that aflatoxin is dangerous mostly
because it's a potent cancer-causiing agent.
david.s.klur
>>I read something a week or so back here that said that white sugar was
>>processed with Animal bones???? Did I misunderstand? I am an ethical vegan
Animal bones *may* be used in the refinement stage of sugar production,
but there are vegan methods of refinement as well. It depends on the
manufacturer. Incidentally, animal bones are also used in the filtration
stage of beer production by some beer mnufacturers. Much to the chagrin
of my brother, who is vegan!
I guess the answer to your question is sometimes.
David Klur
dk...@attmail.com
Ed Hackett
U.S. currency.
It seems the paper is sized by coating it with a substance which prevents
the ink from soaking into the paper.
This sizing material is essentially animal hide glue...
True story...
ref: "Big Secrets," by William Poundstone, pp. 66-67
Ed Hackett
* Freddie 1.2.5 * The first full-featured QWK reader for the Mac.
Kerry Eady
In a previous article, ed.ha...@select.wyvern.com (Ed Hackett) says:
>I just saw a reference to the making (actual printing, not earning) of
>U.S. currency.
>
>It seems the paper is sized by coating it with a substance which prevents
>the ink from soaking into the paper.
>
>This sizing material is essentially animal hide glue...
Well, you know, you'd be hard pressed to find many artists who don't use
*some* kind of animal product in their work. Brushes are made out of
hair and I have yet to find a substitute when oil painting, hide glues are
used in conjunction with preparing a canvas for oil painting. A lot of
paints contain animal products (cassien, egg yolk, beeswax, animal fats,
bones, etc.) Marbling requires goose feathers.
I'm a vegan for health reasons, not ethical. I have looked quite closely
at my options in regards to materials and have found that if I were to use
products that contained no animal derived ingredients, I'd be left with
unreliable, or toxic kinds. With a nursing baby, I think my health comes
first. There were some misinformed vegans in my media class three years
ago. They ranted and raved at us for using beeswax for encaustic (they
used crayons which contained tallow and were not stable as a media), they
boycotted class when we sized our panels with hide glues, (they used
gelatin???and it didn't work well).
Ooops! My hours up, gotta get off the newsgroup. I'll finish this later.
Kerr
--
The energy has dropped - lets raise it sisters!
Kerry Eady
In a previous article, aj...@Freenet.carleton.ca (Kerry Eady) says:
>
>In a previous article, ed.ha...@select.wyvern.com (Ed Hackett) says:
>
>>I just saw a reference to the making (actual printing, not earning) of
>>U.S. currency.
>>
>>It seems the paper is sized by coating it with a substance which prevents
>>the ink from soaking into the paper.
>>
>>This sizing material is essentially animal hide glue...
>
>Well, you know, you'd be hard pressed to find many artists who don't use
>*some* kind of animal product in their work. Brushes are made out of
>hair and I have yet to find a substitute when oil painting, hide glues are
>used in conjunction with preparing a canvas for oil painting. A lot of
>paints contain animal products (cassien, egg yolk, beeswax, animal fats,
>bones, etc.) Marbling requires goose feathers.
>
>I'm a vegan for health reasons, not ethical. I have looked quite closely
>at my options in regards to materials and have found that if I were to use
>products that contained no animal derived ingredients, I'd be left with
>unreliable, or toxic kinds. With a nursing baby, I think my health comes
>first. There were some misinformed vegans in my media class three years
>ago. They ranted and raved at us for using beeswax for encaustic (they
>used crayons which contained tallow and were not stable as a media), they
>boycotted class when we sized our panels with hide glues, (they used
>gelatin???and it didn't work well).
The point is apparently they were unable to find substitutes either, and I
guess weren't trying that hard either.
My solution has been to try and use the products that do the least damage,
animal hide glue is a slaughterhouse byproduct, an animal was not killed
expressly for it (there are a whole lot more meat eaters than artists who
may use a pound of the stuff a year). I don't use European Rabbit Skin
Glue, cause I'm not quite sure about the animals involved. I don't use
sable brushes, only pig hair (or horse hair) for which the animal isn't
hurt. If lets say, animals were slaughtered expressly to make my glue,
I'dfind a substitute. My work wouldn't be the same, and I'd be forced to
use plastics (which aren't good for the environment), or other chemical
preps (also detrimental)to be able to paint.
If you're an ethical vegan, you don't live in a world that's very
sympathetic. I guess there are going to have to be compromises somewhere
along the way. I've reconciled the fact that my profession is going to
require the use of animal byproducts, I still try to be as humane as
possible.
How many vegans out there own oil paintings? Or as the original poster
said - paper money? I'm not flaming animal rights activists, I just think
that there's a lot more products out there that you have to examine when
you want to eliminate animals from your consumption.
Peace,
Ed Hackett
A> Well, you know, you'd be hard pressed to find many artists who don't
A> use *some* kind of animal product in their work.
I think this is an interesting argument which points out just how hard it
can be (and perhaps fruitless) to attempt to totally eliminate animal
products from one's life. Perhaps the best one can reasonably hope for is
to control what goes in your body.
For example, one of my friends is a very outspoken animal rights advocate.
But, he wears leather loafers and eats meat. I see this as fundamentally
irrational behavior. Go figure...
A> I'm a vegan for health reasons, not ethical.
I think this is the most sound starting point for a vegetarian philosophy,
and it's the path I chose for myself after developing heart disease.
Ethical vegetarianism can be a rocky road indeed. But, it's a matter of
individual choice.
Ted Altar
>I read something a week or so back here that said that white sugar was
>processed with Animal bones???? Did I misunderstand?
Maybe you are referring to I posted about molasses a couple
of weeks ago? (I've attached it below). Yes, white
sugar is made by using animal bone ash and charcoal.
Incidentally, there were some studies first conducted in
Japan and confirmed shortly later by some Italian studies
regarding the carcinogenic effects of frequent subcutaneous
injections of glucose. Interestingly, the effects were not
replicated when highly purified monosaccharides (e.g.,
glucose), galactose, fructose and some disaccharides (e.g.,
fruitose, maltose, lactose) were used, but was obtained when
sorbose (another sugar) was used. The conclusion reached
was that the carcinogenic effects of sugar preparations was
due to the carcinogenic impurities, particularly related to
the bone ash and charcoal used in the decolorization of
commercially refined sugar (see "Toxicants Occurring Naturally in Foods", '73).
It is really odd that we go to such trouble to produce
lily white sugar, a wasteful substance in which 90% of the
sugar cane is removed so that there is no protein, vitamins
or anything else that is necessary to the human diet.
Contrary to the sugar industry, we don't need their refined
sugar for energy. The Federal Trade Commission has
repeatedly reprimanded almost every sugar promoter for
claiming that sugar is good for you. It isn't. Dr. Reuben
(see "Everything You Wanted to Know About Nutrition", '78)
said that "If any food processor used a food additive
that was 1/10 as dangerous as we know refined sugar to be,
that food additive would be banned by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration with 24 hours". No doubt this is a
hyperbole as the FDA is not that responsive nor would,
I think, the real problem of dental disease resulting
from sugar be duly considered a harm. There are some
other possible harms or aggravations listed by Dr.
Cleave ("The Saccharine Disease, '74) like mouth, vagina
or urinary infections, constipation, weight gain,
gastric & duodenal ulcers, and diabetes.
Whatever might be the evidence for such worries, there
is the real and immediate worry that refined sugar does
contribute to our excess calory problem and probably
everyone would be better off if they consumed less. It is
used in excess or unnecessarily too many foods, like peanut
butter, baby foods, pickles, bread, frozen dinners, salad
dressing, imitation fruit drinks, ice cream, and so on and
so forth. My gawd, good peanut doesn't need sugar added.
Since sugar is cheap and also heavy, some foods sold by the
weight add unnecessary amounts of sugar to their product,
so as to replace more expensive ingredients or not have to
be as readily concerned about using fresh, ripe produce.
Many parents would sensibly not give their child a chocolate
bar for breakfast, yet they would give them a powdered
breakfast food drink, which can contain just as much sugar
if not even more sugar. What a crazy, saccharized diet we
give our kids!
A good alternative is blackstrap molasses (see below) as it
is nearly unrefined. Even pure honey would be another
alternative. At least there are some mineral content in
these sugars, but even these sugars should be kept to a
minimum. A lot of foods and recipes taste just fine without
the extra added sugar. Real fruit juice is a good sugar
substitute for baking or cooking, and it at least has
both minerals and vitamin C.
Regards,
Ted
========================================================
MOLASSES
Ruth Blackburn has asked me a good question about molasses.
(she presently does not have access to rec.food.veg)
Since ethical vegetarians might wish to avoid refined white
sugar because of the use of animal bones for the
decolouration of the sugar into those nice WASPISH, lily
white granules, then what about molasses which are a by-
product of the white sugar refining industry? Here is my
reply, but maybe others can fill in some of the questions I
could not answer.
Let us assume that what we want is a molasses that does NOT
depend upon any animal products for its production, in and
of itself.. That animal products may be used later in the
total white sugar refining process is beside the point since
the products that are produced from the use of animal
components is not what the ethical vegetarian wishes to
support by buying those products with their consumer
dollars.
MOLASSES FROM CANE SUGAR:
The good news is that the use of bone ash occurs later in
the refining of "affined" (uniform grain sizes) and white
sugar. Before that process, most of the molasses has
already been skimmed off or centrifuged out of the raw
sugar. The bad news is that there may be certain kinds
of molasses that are produced after the bone ash process.
Here is a general description of the process.
Roughly, sugar cane is first milled by crushing and
grinding sugar canes to extract the juice. The pressed
juiced is heated and lime is added. This mixture is
mechanically separated by a continuous juice
clarifier. The clarified juice is then evaporated into a
syrup. The syrup is boiled further to make it more
concentrated and "seed crystals" are added to the raw syrup
to start it crystallizing. This crystallized mixture is
called "MASSECUITE". In a centrifugal machine the
massecuite is separated to produce molasses and raw sugar.
This is our first molasses obtained from the first
centrifugal extraction, and it is lighter in colour and
tastes sweeter because more sugar remains in it. This first
molasses in turn is boiled to produce a thicker slurry which
is again centrifuged to produce a second raw sugar and
molasses. This second molasses is again boiled and
centrifuged to produce yet a third sugar (which is used for
the earlier crystal seeding of the clarified
cane sugar juice) and a third molasses. It is this 3rd
molasses that we call "BLACKSTRAP MOLASSES".
Blackstrap is what I would recommend that you buy, as it has
less sugar and more nutrients. May not tastes as sweet as
the first and second molasses, but at least we know that it
is not the kind of molasses that is not produced later
in the white sugar refining process where the animal bone
ash is used. Yes, there are yet again more different
kinds of molasses that is produced from the further refining
of the white sugar.
When the "raw sugar" extracted from the massecuite is turned
into "refined sugar", there is a process in which it is
mixed with some kind of syrup that helps to remove whatever
film of molasses is still sticking to the raw-sugar
crystals. This is again centrifuged out. The raw sugar is
thinned with hot water and then "purified" by the notorious
animal BONE-ASH or activated carbon decoloration methods.
In the bone-ash method, the sugar solution is heated and
then decolorized by filtering it through beds of bone ash.
Beds of activated carbon may also be used (I don't know from
what they make this activated carbon, but it may again be
animal bones).
This sugar solution, now decolorized by the bone-ash
filtering is boiled down to obtain yet another kind of
molasses centrifuged out from this refined sugar solution.
This process can be repeated any number of times, and at
various stages one might produce various grades of yellow or
brown soft sugars along with the white sugar. These
products are dried and then sent to the packers.
What a lot of fuss to make sugar white!
Thus, the are different kinds of molasses depending on what
stage of the white sugar processing the molasses was
produced by separating it out of the refined sugar. I
don't know the names of the first and second molasses
extracted out earlier before our third extraction that
produce the blackstrap molasses, nor do I know if they are
consistently and reliably designated. Does anybody know?
By themselves, these first 2 produced kinds of molasses
would be fine, but the problem is that we may not know for
sure if they are clearly designated from the molasses
produced that are extracted after the bone filtration
refining.
Regards,
Ted
Mike Eisele
>
> I just saw a reference to the making (actual printing, not earning) of
> U.S. currency.
>
> It seems the paper is sized by coating it with a substance which prevents
> the ink from soaking into the paper.
>
> This sizing material is essentially animal hide glue...
>
>
> ref: "Big Secrets," by William Poundstone, pp. 66-67
>
We'll just have to boycott all U.S. paper money from now on. :-)
This will make it easy to recognize the vegans, We'll be the ones with the
bulging pockets full of coins. :-)
...Mike
TOLERATION BEATS MODERATION!!!!!
--
Ed Hackett
ME> We'll just have to boycott all U.S. paper money from now on.
Send me yours right away.
I'll dispose of it...Ethically, of course.
U33...@uicvm.uic.edu
>
>(see "Everything You Wanted to Know About Nutrition", '78)
>said that "If any food processor used a food additive
>that was 1/10 as dangerous as we know refined sugar to be,
>that food additive would be banned by the U.S. Food and
>Drug Administration with 24 hours". No doubt this is a
>hyperbole as the FDA is not that responsive nor would,
>I think, the real problem of dental disease resulting
>from sugar be duly considered a harm.
On tooth decay resulting from sugar: all sugars (except xylitol)
including honey, dried fruits, and refined sugars will cause tooth
decay. Drinking un-floridated water, such as mineral water, will
not help protect against tooth decay, except to help rinse sugars
from your teeth. Most people reading this group have not had to
face root canal --- but wait 'til you get older!
>There are some
>other possible harms or aggravations listed by Dr.
>Cleave ("The Saccharine Disease, '74) like mouth, vagina
>or urinary infections, constipation, weight gain,
>gastric & duodenal ulcers, and diabetes.
>
Thanks, Ted, for the informative post.
Lu B.
Mr YS Tan
>I read something a week or so back here that said that white sugar was
>processed with Animal bones???? Did I misunderstand? I am an ethical vegan
>who would like to avoid any process with animal products in it... any
>other "hidden" thangs? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Umm.. one product that is so far unavoidable is: fossil fuel.
Walk and cycle? Use only hydro/nuclear power?