Question about organic food terminology

[twins r fun]

In my quest to get my boys to eat breakfast again, I was looking at the "healthy" version of cereal bars in the organic section of my grocery store. The first ingredient for the filling is organic cane juice. Is that just a tricky way of writing "sugar"?

Nicole

[nohomama]

Yes, cane juice is a sweetener.

[lukkykatt]

Our health food store has 2 kinds of cereal bars (I forget the brands). One of them is the one that has cane juice as the first ingredient, but those are fortified and have higher percentages of Vitamin A, C, etc. The other brand has no added sugar BUT is not fortified. They are the ones that I usually get though because DS is taking vitamin drops anyway. Still I always wonder which ones are really better...

Sometimes it seems to be a full time job keeping up with all the nutrition information, so I try to just limit myself to a few key pet peeves!

[mam615]

It's hard to know exactly what is meant by this ingredient, but if it's unrefined, it is probably more healthy than regular sugar. Probably the equivalent of whole grain bread instead of white bread. This is from a book called "Whole Food Bible":

"The niftiest thing to happen in the sweetener world in a long time, Sucanat (a trade name that stands for sugar cane natural) is the dehydrated juice of organically grown sugar cane in granular form. Sucanat is what sugar should be, complete with vitamins, minerals, and a great sweet flavor. It is used just like sugar, and it actually pours well if kept in a container away from excess humidity. Sucanat exploits the nutritional richness of sugar cane very well."