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Evaporated Cane Juice

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Evaporated Cane Juice

Robin Hanson
Mar 6, 2009
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Evaporated Cane Juice

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The ingredient list of Trader Joe's Brand Spinach Pizza includes "Organic Evaporated Cane Juice (Natural Milled Cane Sugar)."  Just as grinding up oranges makes "orange juice", grinding up sugar cane plants makes "cane juice."  To get sugar, you evaporate this to get rid of the water.  

What fraction of folks who read such ingredient lists could really fooled by calling sugar "evaporated cane juice", especially when it is called "sugar" more directly just a few words later?  Could the gain from fooling this few really outweigh the loss of respect from all the other readers Trader Joe's should suffer?

My guess is that other readers are not much offended because they enjoy feeling superior to the fools mislead by such ingredient wordings.  The warm glow from feeling superior outweighs any lack of respect, or feeling insulted, and on net encourages such readers to continue to buy the product.

Added:  OK, uncle; I accept there are legitimate reasons for this wording, at least for some people.

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Evaporated Cane Juice

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Evaporated Cane Juice

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Overcoming Bias Commenter
May 15

I care because evaporated cane juice is not filtered and whitened with cow bones. So, I think I'll get back on my high horse.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter
May 15

Actually, "naturally milled sugar" or "evaporated cane juice" is several steps less refined, is not as simple as refined white sugar and handled differently by your body. It also has a significantly (as far as sugar goes) higher nutrient level than the fully refined sugar. So, yeah, those of us who do the research (or grew up in cane country like I did) do like the warm and fuzzies of this labeling...

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