Evaporated Cane Juice: If It's Sugar, Call It Sugar

Evaporated cane juice sounds like a healthy ingredient. Evaporated implies unprocessed, cane seems to be natural and many consumers associate juice with health. But, evaporated cane juice is a euphemism for sugar. Evaporated cane juice, cane juice, organic cane juice and organic evaporated cane juice are all terms used to hide the addition of sugar in processed foods.

The FDA issued a new guidance this month suggesting that manufacturers use the common names for sugar ingredients and avoid misleading terms, such as evaporated cane juice. Juice, as defined by the FDA, is “the aqueous liquid expressed or extracted from one or more fruits or vegetables" (1).  Although sugar cane is a plant and may be classified as a vegetable in a broader sense, the FDA does not consider it a vegetable. Sugar, as defined by the FDA, is sucrose obtained from sugar cane or sugar beets.

To create evaporated cane juice, sugar cane is crushed, the fluid extracted and then clarified. Water is evaporated and the remaining solids are filtered, crystallized and placed in a centrifuge to separate out the molasses. Although the process may vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer, the result is 99% to 99.8% sucrose.

The diagram to the right shows the three types of double sugars, sucrose, maltose and lactose. Table sugar is sucrose, malt sugar is maltose and milk sugar is lactose. Evaporated cane juice may vary slightly from table sugar in physical appearance, but it is nearly chemically identical to table sugar.

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The new document is a guidance for the industry, not a requirement. We will likely continue to see evaporated cane juice in ingredient lists. The key is to recognize this ingredient as added sugar.

References

1. Guidance for Industry: Ingredients Declared as Evaporated Cane Juice. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. May, 2016. http://www.fda.gov/food/guidanceregulation/guidancedocumentsregulatoryinformation/ucm181491.htm
   
2. Image by Christine Dobrowolski using raw sugar by Editor at Large, CC BY-SA 2.5.