I never knew that some sugar is not vegan

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

It's because bones are used in the processing of some cane sugar. I'm not vegan, this fact just randomly popped up when I looking at some dairy-free recipes which also happened to be vegan, so specified 'vegan sugar' on the ingredients list. I was sneering a bit at the recipe but Googled it anyway and was very surprised.

I'm assuming that most sugar sold in Europe comes from beets, which doesn't require the use of bones to process, but if you buy something that contains sugar as an ingredient it doesn't usually state the source of the sugar.

Did everyone know this already, or have I created a new 'I never knew X until MN told me' fact?

That's news to me as well!

British sugar is all vegan as it's from sugar beet

Very interesting fact, I never knew this either

All organic crops are fertilised with animal products

Veganism isn’t really possible

It’s not the case in the UK, but is in the US.

Found this online. Apparently more likely to be non vegan in the US.

Icing sugar

You may have heard that regular white sugar is non-vegan because they filter it usingbone char- that is, charred and powdered animal bone. BUT you’ll be pleased to know that that really only applies in the US. In the UK, most regular sugar brands are vegan.

There is one exception to this, though - icing sugar.

It doesn’t use bone char but some of the most popular brands of icing sugar contain dried egg white.

It’s a bit more of a pain to find a vegan option here, although if you search for “vegan icing sugar”, you can find brands that sell online.

I don't think all sugar sold in the UK/Europe is beet based though. I love the taste of muscovado and demerara sugar and will often mix it with white sugar when baking, especially biscuits. I'm pretty sure that both of those contain molasses that you only get from cane sugar.

All UK sugar is vegan, in fact, all sugar in almost every country aside from the USA is vegan as far as I am aware

It's icing sugar... it's so fluffy and never clumps. Icing sugar in my home country (another EU state) clumps into hard balls.

Its only Royal Icing sugar that has egg in, as its a royal icing premix.
Otherwise all fine.

Silverspoon sugar is made from beat, Tate and Lyle's is made from cane (They are the only sugar refiners in the country so any own brands will come from one or the other) Both say all their sugar apart from Royal icing sugar is vegan (the royal icing has egg white in it). Can you tell what industry my DH used to work in?

All organic crops are fertilised with animal products

Veganism isn’t really possible

Yup. Plus all the little fluffy creatures and insects that get minced up by combine harvesters and other large, sharp farming equipment during the cutting and harvesting of arable crops.

I actually found this out last week, exactly the same way as you did, OP! Who knew, and wtf?!

I didn't know icing sugar had egg in it! That's a bit of a shock, I would totally have used it without thinking.

I just checked my box of dark Muscovado and it’s vegan.

@BertieBotts is royal icing sugar that has egg white in it, standard icing sugar doesn't.

All organic crops are fertilised with animal products

Is this animal poo or blood and bones type fertiliser? I'm quite happy with poo, but hadn't given it any real thought. Bit depressing if it's dead animal.

Ah OK. I very rarely need to bake anything egg free but I will know for the future if I do :)