[189] in Vegetarian_Support_Group
Sugar Processing and Charred Animal Bones
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ed Piekos)
Thu Oct 6 13:55:35 1994
To: vsg@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 06 Oct 1994 13:21:34 EDT."
<9410061721.AA00896@m66-080-11.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 06 Oct 1994 13:53:51 EDT
From: Ed Piekos <espiekos@MIT.EDU>
Laura,
Yup, I've heard the charred-animal-bones-thing about sugar before.
There was a big deal about their use in sugar and beer last year on one
of the veggie lists. Basically, charred anything organic is activated
charcoal (I think; I'm an Aero so I'm out of my league on the chemistry
thing). It is used as a fiter in a final stage to pull out impurities
which would discolor the sugar or cloud the beer. When this discussion
took place last year, a few people from the UK pointed out some sugar
brands which don't do this. I didn't bother to record them because I
didn't think I could find these products locally. I suppose you could
just call sugar companies and ask what they use (I think they said the
process is called 'fining' for beer, but I'm not sure what it would be
called for sugar).
Personally, I don't worry too much about it because, as far as I'm
concerned, it is not an animal product after it is charred. Chemically,
I don't expect much difference between charred animal bones and charred
wood, for example. Also, the product is filtered using this substance,
ie. it is there to *remove* trace elements, not add them. My point is
that there are probably not any traces of animal protein in the product
after this process is completed. Lastly, they do not, to my knowledge,
raise animals strictly so their bones can be used in this way. The
animals were already raised and killed to support the Standard American
Diet (SAD) (I love that acronym), so by using these products, you are
not highly responsible for their treatment or death.
With that said, I will point out that these types of animal-use
spinoffs don't directly increase the number of livestock raised, but
it probably does decrease the costs involved in the process because
they can sell what would otherwise have been a waste product. I
think this effect is minimal, but it is something worth mentioning.
I personally try to avoid these things when practical on this basis
(coupled with the fact that the charred-bone image is, admittedly, a
bit disturbing).
On the B-12 thing, by the way. As the article mentioned, you don't
need very much. The New Laurel's Kitchen points out, however, that
the consequences of a deficiency can be rather severe (nerve damage).
Point: Be careful! I take a multivitamin that contains B-12, mostly
as a cheap insurance policy. There has been some serious questions of
absorption of B-12 from vitamins and certain foods, however. Evidently,
there are B-12 analogs out there which don't quite cut it as far as
your body is concerned but would still show up as B-12 on a label.
The more you know, the more you need to know, huh?
<<ESP>>
