Hello all! This is my very first post on this forum, so I hope I do it right and that this post is in the correct topic!
I live in northern VA in the US and we have a grocery chain that many people are very enthusiastic about, called Wegmans. We love their produce and their products and until very recently, I really enjoyed the fact that they use little circles on their products to label store brand items as gluten-free, vegan, heart healthy, low sodium, etc. I noticed that a jar of (supposedly) vegan salsa contained sugar under the ingredients, so I called the company and asked about whether the sugar they used was processed with bone char. I know not all vegans are strict on the refined sugar thing, but we are so it was a valid concern for us. The lady called us back a while later to say that they do not, in fact, know whether the sugar they use is processed with bone char -- the vegan labeling, according to the woman I spoke with, is only indicative that there are no animal products used in making the salsa. I'm not sure how to take this, although I know I won't be buying anything labeled vegan that also contains sugar, since they cannot be sure where it came from. I would think big companies like this would have the knowledge to label things correctly?
Does this bother anyone else? Or do the majority of vegans not worry about whether their cane sugar is processed with bone char? We buy organic sugar to insure we aren't supporting the vast majority of producers that use bone char -- so the fact that our vegan-labeled products contain it seems like deception to me. Thoughts?
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