Wednesday, January 2, 2008

New Years Revolutions, or 'Pour Some Turbinado Sugar on Me'

So, I'm sitting here at work breaking about half of my New Years resolutions. It's 10:30 am on January 2. Some of the resolutions are really worth keeping, however. This year, my second year of veganism, I resolve to become a BETTER VEGAN.

I eat refined sugar.

so ashamed. so very ashamed


I lazily cut and pasted from Vegan Outreach's website. After they explain to you how disgusting bone-char sugar they suggest that you go ahead and eat it to make veganism look easy to other people. This philosophy sounded good to me last year, but as the days pass I become so much more concerned with how I live my life. And quite honestly, it's not going to be hard to abstain from sugar, and I think it makes vegans appear healthier and cooler. :)

Refined sugars do not contain any animal products, and so by an ingredients-based definition of vegan, refined sugar is vegan. However, some refined sugar is processed with animal bone char. The charcoal is used to remove color, impurities, and minerals from sugar. The charcoal is not 'in' the sugar, but is used in the process as as a filter. Thus by a process-based definition of vegan, refined sugar may not be considered vegan. For those who would prefer not to use refined sugar, there are several alternatives: raw, turbinado, beet sugar, succanat, date sugar, fructose, barley malt, rice syrup, corn syrup, molasses, and maple syrup.

So, it's not going to be hard to keep that resolution. I'm not even sure why I'm writing about it - other than it's a little step closer to becoming a Level 5 Vegan.

:)