Are we supporting cow slaughter?
By purchasing white sugar, you are paying for the total cost of the product including the cost of the bone char used to refine it. From there, your money is then going to slaughterhouses which profit from the carcass of the cows they kill.
While it can be argued that the bones are simply waste by-products of slaughterhouses, and the cow meat is their true revenue source, this is simply not true. Though cow meat (beef) is the dominant source of income, other cow body part by-products such as cow hide (leather), and bones and hooves, do ultimately contribute to their revenue to a lesser extent.
A little known fact is that many (or perhaps most) Hindu farmers in India end up selling their cows to slaughterhouses despite their religious convictions. The reason for this is purely economic. The cost of feeding an aged non-milk producing cow for the rest of its natural life is nowhere as lucrative as simply selling it to a slaughterhouse. If you are an advocate of banning cow slaughter in India, think about it this way. By consuming white sugar, you are in small part encouraging a farmer in India to sell his cow to a slaughterhouse.
How to avoid white sugar
Avoiding white sugar altogether is practically impossible in today’s world. However, there are a number of easy steps you can take to dramatically decrease your consumption of it in your daily life.
Outside of home, its hard to manage what type of sugar you consume, but when you do purchase sugar for home use, there are a couple easy options:
1. Buy brown Sucanat and turbinado sugar There’s no taste difference. The sugar crystals are slightly larger, and are colored light brown.
2. Use beet sugar. Sugar derived from beet roots is white but does not undergo bone char filtration.
3. Buy refined white sugar that does not use bone char. There are methods of decolorizing cane sugar using alternative methods. You can find a list of companies that do not use bone char processing.
Finally, tell others Hindus about how white sugar is made too, so they can be better informed. Tell your temple to not use adharmic sugar when preparing prasadams or panchamruta or laddus offered to the deities.
By purchasing white sugar, you are paying for the total cost of the product including the cost of the bone char used to refine it. From there, your money is then going to slaughterhouses which profit from the carcass of the cows they kill.
While it can be argued that the bones are simply waste by-products of slaughterhouses, and the cow meat is their true revenue source, this is simply not true. Though cow meat (beef) is the dominant source of income, other cow body part by-products such as cow hide (leather), and bones and hooves, do ultimately contribute to their revenue to a lesser extent.
A little known fact is that many (or perhaps most) Hindu farmers in India end up selling their cows to slaughterhouses despite their religious convictions. The reason for this is purely economic. The cost of feeding an aged non-milk producing cow for the rest of its natural life is nowhere as lucrative as simply selling it to a slaughterhouse. If you are an advocate of banning cow slaughter in India, think about it this way. By consuming white sugar, you are in small part encouraging a farmer in India to sell his cow to a slaughterhouse.
How to avoid white sugar
Avoiding white sugar altogether is practically impossible in today’s world. However, there are a number of easy steps you can take to dramatically decrease your consumption of it in your daily life.
Outside of home, its hard to manage what type of sugar you consume, but when you do purchase sugar for home use, there are a couple easy options:
1. Buy brown Sucanat and turbinado sugar There’s no taste difference. The sugar crystals are slightly larger, and are colored light brown.
2. Use beet sugar. Sugar derived from beet roots is white but does not undergo bone char filtration.
3. Buy refined white sugar that does not use bone char. There are methods of decolorizing cane sugar using alternative methods. You can find a list of companies that do not use bone char processing.
Finally, tell others Hindus about how white sugar is made too, so they can be better informed. Tell your temple to not use adharmic sugar when preparing prasadams or panchamruta or laddus offered to the deities.
