sri: Dear Devotees, please accept adiyen's humble pranam: Since the food topic came up, adiyen takes the liberty of mentioning some of the prohibited food items that many Sri Vaishnavas consume out of ignorance. Sugar: Derived from sanskrit: Su (Sweet) gar (Sand) ======================================== The regular sugar (white in color) sold in all grocery stores and consumed by most families, passes through a cow bone char filter. (see details below) Solution: in adiyen's home we use Florida Crystal - Sugar. the other brand that seems ok is Jack Frost. the cost is a bit more, but we know what is in the food, (In the USA you can get these at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's) All the major brands, Domino, Savannah Foods, California and Hawaiian Sugar carried by all major stores all use bone char. ======================================== Milk: Adiyen recommends Organic Milk. ====================================== Similar story for regular milk that is found in grocery stores, in adiyen's home we use Organic Milk. (again a bit more $, available at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's) ================================================== Details: (for those who want proof) Report from Vegetatian Journal ============================http://www.vrg.org/ Sugar and other sweeteners: Do they contain animal products? ============================================================ Refined Sugar: Most of the cane sugar refineries require the use of a specific filter to decolorise the sugar and absorb inorganic material from it. This whitening process occurs towards the end of the sugar refining procedure. The filter used by most of the sugar producers is bone char from cows. Bones from cows are the only type used to make bone char. According to the Sugar Association and several large sugar producers, all of the cows have died of "natural causes" and do not come from the U.S. meat industry. ========================================================= The two major types of refined sugar produced in the United States are beet sugar and cane sugar. Processing involves bone char filter. An activated carbon filter, made of bone char, decolorises sugar to make it white through an absorption process. While the bone char filter is used by some major sugar companies. According to beet sugar producers, beet and cane sugar are nutritionally equivalent and one cannot usually taste any difference between them. They are both composed of sucrose. Beet sugar refineries never use a bone char filter in processing because this type of sugar does not require an extensive decolorising procedure. Beet sugar can be refined with a pressure lead filter and an ion exchange system. ========================================================= Bone char is derived from the bones of cattle from Afghanistan, Argentina, India and Pakistan. The sun-bleached bones are bought by Scottish, Brazilian, and Egyptian marketers, who sell them to the U.S. sugar industry after the bones are first used by the gelatin industry. Bone is heated to an extremely high temperature, which results in a physical change in the bones composition. The bone becomes pure carbon before it is used in a refinery. Refined sugar does not contain any bone particles and is therefore kosher certified. The bone char simply removes impurities from the sugar, but does not become a part of the sugar. Companies that use bone char claim that the char is more economically feasible and efficient than other types of filters. Many cane refineries use bone char. Domino, the largest sugar manufacturer, uses bone char in the filtration process. The cane refineries of Savannah Foods, the second largest sugar manufacturer, also use bone char. California and Hawaiian Sugar employs bone char filters in addition to granular carbon and ion exchange filters. All these companies use the bone char in the refining process of brown sugar, powdered sugar (sugar mixed with corn starch) and white sugar. Some cane refineries do not use bone char. Refined Sugar, producers of Jack Frost Sugar, claim to use a granular carbon instead of bone char. Florida Crystal sugar is a cane sugar which has not passed through the bone. Although Florida Crystals sugar has a straw color, the impurities still have been removed. All commercial sugar has undergone some refining. Genuine raw sugar cannot be bought and sold to the general consumer in the United States according to FDA regulations, as it is considered unfit for human consumption. Refining sugar involves a series of steps, including clarification and an initial step where sugar syrup is added. The clarifying agents are calcium hydroxide, phosphoric acid, and polyacrylomite. The sugar used in the initial syrup is an intermediate, raw sugar which has not yet gone through the bone char filter. Brown sugar is basically refined sugar with added molasses. The brown sugar produced by the beet industry uses cane molasses, but this molasses has not gone through the bone char. Cane sugar companies which use bone char will utilize bone char to refine brown sugar. ====================================================================== Azhvar Emberumanar Jeeyar ThiruvadigalE sharanam adiyEn rAmAnuja dAsan Mukundan Vangkipuram Pattangi http://www.radioramanuja.com http://www.vedics.net ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. 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