Sugar - Does it Need Kosher Certification or Not?

Adding a heaping teaspoon of sugar to your tea or coffee? Don't miss this.

Last week we detailed the sugar production process: the sugar we all know is extracted from two plants - sugar cane and sugar beet. The sugar cane stalk is crushed at the factory, and the beet is sliced into strips resembling chips. These processes create juice, which is cooked at the factory. The cooking process results in a cloudy greenish or grayish solution containing several different acids. If we were to taste the sugar at this stage, we would detect a bitter and sour aftertaste, quite uncharacteristic of the sweet sugar we love.

To clean the sugar solution, lime water is immediately added, which is a chemical substance with no kosher concerns. The remaining juice undergoes massive heating and is transferred to vacuum containers, where it distills and thickens into a thick syrup with a brown tint. Afterward, the factory adds powdered sugar (icing sugar) into the syrup in an amount of about two hundred grams, and the small sugar particles begin to crystallize into white sugar crystals.

So where exactly is the problem?

If they stopped at this stage and dried the liquid, the resulting product would be brown sugar, known to all of us as brown sugar or classic demerara sugar. This product has no kosher issue since the production process doesn't involve adding problematic substances. However, the more common method today is to create a kind of "soup" of brown liquid containing white sugar crystals and crystals by adding powdered sugar. This liquid is streamed into a centrifuge at the factory, which consists of drums with perforated walls that spin rapidly and separate the molasses from the white sugar crystals. Only after the molasses is expelled and the sugar crystals remain in the drum are the white crystals taken for final drying and grinding. This creates the white sugar waiting for us on the shelves. If we want brown sugar, a little of the molasses is left and not completely separated from the white sugar, so the sugar is colored brown.

At the stage where sugar turns into crystal, there are two kosher issues (the first is almost non-existent), and that is that "glycerin" might be added to this process to facilitate the "crystallization" of sugar crystals. In a very small percentage of cases, the glycerin process originates from animals and is therefore not kosher. As we said, this phenomenon is almost not a concern, as it is almost non-existent in factories today. The second issue, which is more common, is actually the problem that exists in almost all sugar factories - the addition of another substance, "antifoam."

Antifoam - not nice to meet you

Antifoam is one of the foam-preventing substances, and its addition to sugar is most essential. In the sugar extraction process, the liquid needs to be streamed quickly inside the centrifuge. The spinning speed creates foam, which impairs the efficiency of the pump. To illustrate this process, it's like trying to remove an object from a sink full of foam and soap, which is extremely difficult. The main efficiency of antifoam is in being a foam-preventing substance, based on a fatty material that is not suitable for direct use in food products. In other products, there are foam-preventing substances based on alcohol oil or kerosene (a type of petroleum) and fuel, but needless to say, these substances are toxic and inedible.

This created a serious problem for sugar manufacturers, as for direct use in food products, a non-toxic substance is required. Antifoam is mostly made from animal fat and although it's not toxic, it might present certain kashrut issues. If we present this fact to kosher certification agencies worldwide, we'll be told that it's a highly "flawed" substance, does not impart flavor, and does not prohibit sugar from a kosher perspective. The meaning of a "flawed" substance is one that is added in a minimal amount of a few PPM to the sugar itself. This small amount is certainly nullified in several hundred liters, thus allowing the sugar to be permissible even without kosher certification. Nevertheless, kosher certification agencies that certify sugar check the antifoam substances and ensure they come from known factories that don't produce it from animal fat. Anyone slightly familiar with this industry knows that most large factories use the same substances, which come from a limited number of factories that produce antifoam that have already been checked to ensure they don't contain animal fat.

So is it worth looking for kosher certification on sugar? After reading this article, you can decide for yourself.