would you like bone char with that?

As I mentioned in the last post, ever since middle school I've been obsessed with becoming a vegetarian. I say "becoming" and not "being" because I've never managed to actually go all the way into complete herbivoria. ( yes, I did just make up that word.) I tried giving up meat for Lent and eating only from the vegetarian bar in the dining halls, but I'd still always somehow make my way back over to the barbecue chicken pizza. My aunt and uncle eat mainly vegetarian, so I've been eating a lot of seafood and vegetables. You'd think I'd be relishing in this opportunity to live a completely meat-free life. But, also like I said before, the truth is, if I could have anything in the world right now it'd be a double double cheeseburger from In n Out Burger, animal style, large fry on the side with tons of ketchup and a root beer. AH I have to stop talking about it. I make a very bad vegetarian.


One of my aunt's really good friends is a vegan (no cheese?!), and gave her a vegan cookbook. My uncle and cousin have been very wary about trying the recipes, but my aunt and I were curious about them. Today, with my cousin in France and my uncle in Arizona, we decided try out a few recipes. The first to tackle was (of course) a cake. We decided on a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. While assembling all the ingredients, I noticed that the sugar was labeled "vegan sugar". My aunt and I were a little perplexed about this, because, as far as we knew, sugar in general didn't contain any animal bi-products. While the cakes were baking, I googled the difference between vegan sugar & just regular sugar. Turns out, there is a difference. This is what one website says:

"...the organic sugar may – or may not – have been passed through  a bone ash filter. The method of whitening and purifying sugar by passing it through a bone ash filter was patented back in 1812 by one Louis Constant and has been common (though perhaps less so lately – or not) ever since. Bone ash filters utilize bone char, aka bone black or animal charcoal, produced by heating cattle bones at high temperatures in an airless environment to burn off volatile chemicals. Bone char, in return, has a high capacity for absorbing  lead, mercury, arsenic and other nasties."

Isn't that totally revolting and gross? The good news is it won't affect how I feel about eating sugar in the least, because sugar is too good to give up in total, and I can't afford to buy only vegan sugar. As of right now, I'm waiting for the vegan frosting to soften up because I put it in the fridge while the cakes were cooling. I'll post a picture of the cake when it's finished, so far it's not super pretty but it tastes delicious! Surprising, right? The main difference in the flavor probably comes from the fact that the sugar in it wasn't processed through heated ground cattle bones. Yum!

Alright, here's one of the cakes before it was frosted:

mmm, super appetizing. Fortunately, here's what the finished product looks like:

Yay! This cake took me almost an hour to frost. I hate this cake. Luckily, that won't stop me from still eating it.

cheers, 

Lauren