The above sugar facts can be concluded by anyone through reading but in addition to the reading, I have taken the trouble to visit sugar refineries in both Hawaii and California. Aside from general curiosity, my reason for these visits was that I had been selling "raw" or brown sugar without understanding what they are. There was no information available which seemed dependable.

Sugar cane is grown with the use of synthetic fertilizers and weed sprays. The fields are burned just previous to harvest. These are destructive agricultural practices; nothing truly good can come from soil so mistreated. I would, therefore, be uninterested in consuming anything derived from commercially grown sugar cane, either brown sugar or molasses.

Sugar refining is largely a mechanical process done in truly huge machines which boil, spin, filter and separate. Aside from water, the materials which enter the processing are lime, phosphoric acid and diatomaceous earth. I don't consider any of these additives significant where white sugar is concerned because one thing is certainly true about white sugar; it is "pure". No chemical residues could possibly remain at the end of the line, so effective is their purification process.

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There are three kinds of sugar which are not white: light brown, dark brown and Kleenraw. They are all made the same way—by adding back molasses to refined sugar. For years I have heard several different versions of how these so-called "raw" sugars are made. All of them led me to believe that the so-called "raw" sugar which has traditionally been used in the health food industry is a "partially refined" product removed from the refining process sometimes before the final stage of white sugar. But my investigation have proved this impression erroneous. All forms of non-white sugars are made from a base of white sugar.

The numbers go like this: Partially refined or "raw" sugar is 97% sucrose when it leaves Hawaii and goes through a gigantic California refinery to produce refined sugar, 99.96% sucrose. For Kleenraw they add back 5% molasses, for light brown they add back 12% molasses, for dark brown they add back 13% molasses. A special crystallization process is used for Kleenraw designed especially to create a raw-like illusion.