Animal Pictures in Sugar Packets

Not really sure of the exact details but my wife and I usually try our best to buy things from Natural stores, that way we get products of a better quality, although a bit more expensive but it is guaranteed to be made for vegans / vegetarians.  Depending on the situation.

The sugar here is made from pure gorilla meat .....I really hope you didn't eat that

While some brands of REFINED sugar do contain bone char as a whitener the amount is so small as to be virtually non-existent. In typical fashion animal extremists and the vegan police exaggerate everything to the extreme. You probably get much more animal content from eating fruit, since many countries use animal manure as fertilizer. This whole issue is simply overblown.

If you're that concerned about not getting the little bit of bone char in refined white sugar, then you can avoid it altogether by purchasing what is called Crystal Sugar (açucar cristal) which is not refined into the tiny particles and artificially whitened with bone char.

Cheers,
James   Expat-blog Experts Team

Steve LOL!

And to answer your question about why they have pictures of animals on the sugar packets...

This is a common practice in many countries, not just here in Brazil. Just look at the photo above from Portugal, which was to feature animals in the Parque Biológico da Serra da Lousã. The sugar and coffee companies who distribute the packets to restaurants commonly put such images on the packets because children collect the empty packets. The companies always use some theme that has educational value to children, such as wild animals, birds, fish, historical events and people, etc. Some of these companies actually distribute free albums for children to stick all the various packets related to that them into. It's almost as popular as collecting stamps or baseball cards is in some countries.

The presence of the image of an elephant on the packet certainly wouldn't indicate in any way that it contained bone char, elephant droppings or anything else but sugar. It's there purely for decorative and educational purposes.

Cheers,
James    Expat-blog Experts Team