Sugar Story
(Page 2 of 3)
September/October 1971
By Fred Rohe
The numbers go like this: Partially refined or "raw" sugar is 97% sucrose when it leaves Hawaii and goes through a gigantic California refinery to produce refined sugar, 99.96% sucrose. For Kleenraw they add back 5% molasses, for light brown they add back 12% molasses, for dark brown they add back 13% molasses. A special crystalization process is used for Kleenraw designed especially to create a raw-like illusion.
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All sugar companies use similar processes, as it is against the law to sell sugar which has not been refined. Ostensibly, the purpose of this law is to protect us; in reality it means we have no freedom to choose what kind of sugar we would use. Personally, I would like to be able to buy sugar from an organically grown cane in the form of an almost black, syrupy mass of crystals. It is rumored that the law which prevents us from buying such true raw sugar was enacted as a result of powerful lobbying on the behalf of the sugar refining companies.
Organic Merchants do not sell brown or "raw" sugar or any products containing brown sugar either, because the plain fact is that brown sugar is a shuck (for those not familiar with the term, let's call brown sugar phony).
It does not seem to me to be a good judgement to ban white sugar because it is refined to the point of foodlessness containing neither vitamins nor minerals, a definite potential human heath hazard... and then turn around and sell a product which is made from 87% of the very same white sugar. Having done a thorough personal investigation, I can assure you that brown sugar is nothing more than white sugar wearing a mask.
Besides not liking the 87% part of brown sugar—meaning the white sugar—I don't like much the 13% part either—the molasses. For one thing, the ecologially unsound agricultural practices I mentioned previously; for another thing; those mammoth filtration units the molasses comes out of which are filled with charred beef bones. A representative from one of the sugar companies who came to see me to answer some questions from a letter I have written said the burned beef bones were to give the white sugar a more pleasing "aesthetic" effect. He explained that burned beef bones make white sugar whiter. Of course it's purely personal opinion but I say God save us from such "aesthetics".
