Are bones used in the preparation of sugar ?

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Animal bones were historically used to whiten raw cane sugar.

In the 19th Century, scientists realized that the decolorizing capability of bone charcoal was much greater than wood char. The sugar refining industry was quick to substitute bone char for wood char.

Today sugar is decolorized with "granular activated carbon", which is made by processing mineral carbon.

"Bone char", also known as bone black or animal charcoal, is a granular black material produced by calcinating animal bones: the bones are heated to high temperatures in the absence of air to drive off volatile substances. It consists mainly of calcium phosphate and a small amount of carbon. Bone char has a very high surface area and a high absorptive capacity for lead, mercury, and arsenic.

Bone char is often used in the sugar refining industry for decolorizing (a process patented by Louis Constant in 1812). This leads to worries from vegans and even vegetarians, since about a quarter of the sugar in the US is processed using bone char as a filter (about half of all sugar from sugar cane is processed with bone char, the rest with activated carbon).

As bone char does not get into the sugar, sugar processed this way is considered parve/Kosher. Vegans are of varying opinions over whether such sugar can be considered truly vegan....Show more