Sarah, all sugar manufactured in Australia is vegan (CSR and Bundaberg have confirmed that they ceased using bone char refinement many years ago). Be wary of brands that appear to be Australian but say ‘imported ingredients’ or ‘imported and local ingredients’ on the packaging, because that means they have been processed elsewhere under unknown conditions.

My understanding is that organic sugars are unprocessed, and therefore are inherently vegan… but lately I’ve been a bit conflicted about the organics industry in general because it relies on manure, often from animals that are purchased specifically for the purpose (and eventually, presumably, slaughtered). Nothing is straightforward, is it?

http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/coconut_palm_sugar.htm

Hi Emm! Thank you so much for this added information. It’s really helpful. 🙂 I think it’s awesome that you are interested in being so aware of what you consume. Vegan or not, we should all be aware of what we are putting into our bodies and the processes behind it.

I called 2 sugar companies and the ingredient used is called bone char. From what I can understand if the sugar is parve, bone char is not used, since it could be pig bone char and that would make it not parve.
I hope this helps some.

Now that I understand that bone meal (I’m guessing that’s the form) is added as a bleaching agent…it makes more sense…

But I still don’t understand why a company would bother, since the molasses in the sugar is what makes it dark. I need to research the refining process of sugar since I’m still not totally convinced.

I buy Florida Crystals, demerara sugar because I live in America and I think it’s best for me to buy a product made here and Florida Crystals uses wind energy for their plant. I also like that I can buy a big shaker of it. Sometimes I buy Sugar in The Raw, since it’s from Hawaii but I’ll have to find out how they process their sugar. I’m not vegan but I still think using animal bone for processing is odd, so I’d prefer to skip those brands.

I know what you mean, Rose. It can be really frustrating and hard to tell who you can trust. I’ve heard that since it’s more expensive to use processed sugar in items, companies often go with cane juice or raw sugar. However I’m not sure how accurate this is. I always look for beet sugar or cane juice on things. If it says “sugar”, I decide based on the brand. For example, I know that packaged items from Trader Joe’s contain their store brand vegan sugar. When it comes to larger and more commercial brands, it’s hard to tell and is a call everyone must make for themselves.