Many things one finds away from home seem familiar from a distance, as in a photo on the Internet, while the close-up experience reveals a world of difference.  I was reminded of this truth recently, just by taking a break from walking at a roadside bar in Singapore.  I glanced at the menu and noticed something I had never tried before:  freshly-pressed sugar cane juice.  It was delicious.  The taste was sweet, but refreshing and enjoyable rather than overwhelming, unlike so many soft drinks on the supermarket shelves today that are loaded with added sugar.  As for my sugar cane juice, a second round was not needed, but the first was not regretted.

Sugar cane juice is as simple as it sounds.  One makes it by  “crushing the fibrous insides of sugar cane stalks” in order to “release[] the natural sap of the plant, which is then filtered for impurities and drunk as is” (http://www.livestrong.com/article/370660-the-nutrition-of-sugarcane-juice/).  Since it is so simple, I began to wonder on my walk home that evening why I had never come across sugar cane juice before.  Unsurprisingly, fresh sugar cane juice is usually enjoyed in places where sugar cane is grown, like Brazil (http://basilio.fundaj.gov.br/pesquisaescolar_en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1258%3Asugarcane-juice&catid=53%3Aletter-s&Itemid=1), Ecuador (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/when-cane-juice-meets-yeast-brewing-in-ecuador-18063279/), and India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/food/drinks-corner/Handmade-sugarcane-juice-getting-popular/articleshow/34329940.cms).  Since I was born in California, grew up in Oklahoma, and spent most of the last decade in the Washington, DC area, maybe it stands to reason that I would not have occasion to come across sugar cane juice.

Then again, perhaps there is more to it than geography.  The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) explains that “[t]he United States is among the world’s largest sugar producers”, and that “[s]ince the mid-1990s, sugarcane has accounted for about 45 percent of the total sugar produced domestically” (http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/sugar-sweeteners/background.aspx).  That is a lot of sugar cane, as the “U.S. sugar production expanded from an early 1980s’ average of 6.0 million short tons, raw value (STRV) to an average 8.1 million STRV in the 2000s” (http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/sugar-sweeteners/background.aspx).

One might think drinking sugar cane juice is unpopular because it is unhealthy, but actually, fresh cane juice is purported to have significant nutritional and health benefits by a number of healthy living sites (e.g., http://www.livestrong.com/article/370660-the-nutrition-of-sugarcane-juice/, http://www.womenplanet.in/health-fitness/benefits-of-sugarcane-juice-nutritional-value-and-disadvantages, and http://www.processedfreeamerica.org/resources/health-news/535-raw-sugarcane-juicenatures-perfect-wonder-food). Although I am not qualified to evaluate the claims of such sites for the health benefits of drinking sugar cane juice, it would seem that a naturally sweet alternative to the many sodas popular in the United States today would be at least as interesting for many Americans as it was for me on a walk in Singapore, if only for a change of pace. In spite of this, fresh sugar cane juice seems to be the sort of thing sold by specialty shops like California’s Raw Cane Super Juice Bar (http://sugarcanejuice.org/about-our-cane/) rather than in the mainstream.

So, why is it that fresh cane juice hasn’t caught on in the United States?  It may simply be an aspect of American food culture; that is, Americans may simply think of sugar cane as something that sweetens a drink–not as a drink itself. In fact, a recent report of the FDA may support this conclusion.  In its 2009 Draft Guidance for Industry on Ingredients Declared as Evaporated Cane Juice, the FDA stated the following:

“Over the past few years the term ‘evaporated cane juice’ has started to appear as an ingredient on food labels, most commonly to declare the presence of sweeteners derived from sugar cane syrup. However, FDA’s current policy is that sweeteners derived from sugar cane syrup should not be declared as “evaporated cane juice” because that term falsely suggests that the sweeteners are juice (Refs. 1, 2, 3).

‘Juice’ is defined by 21 CFR 120.1(a) as ‘the aqueous liquid expressed or extracted from one or more fruits or vegetables, purees of the edible portions of one or more fruits or vegetables, or any concentrates of such liquid or puree.’ Although FDA does not dispute that sugar cane is a member of the vegetable kingdom in the broad sense of classifying an article as ‘animal,’ ‘vegetable,’ or ‘mineral,’ the agency considers the term ‘vegetable’ in the context of the juice definition to refer more narrowly to edible plant parts that consumers are accustomed to eating as vegetables in their diet. Sugar cane is not a vegetable in this sense. While consumers can purchase pieces of sugar cane, consumers do not eat sugar cane as a ‘vegetable’ but instead use it as a source of sugar by chewing on the cane or its fibers or by placing the cane in a beverage to sweeten it. There are other plant juices used for human food that similarly are not “vegetable juice” or ‘fruit juice’ for purposes of the juice definition; e.g., maple syrup and sorghum syrup. In summary, FDA’s view is that the juice or extract of sugar cane is not the juice of a plant that consumers are accustomed to eating as a vegetable in their diet and is not, therefore, ‘juice’ as contemplated by the regulation defining that term (Refs. 1, 3)“(http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm181491.htm).

What is interesting here is not so much the FDA’s conclusion regarding evaporated cane juice (“ECJ”) as it is the logic it uses to get there.  Essentially, the FDA is saying that, by law, juice comes only from fruits and vegetables.  The FDA has decided that such vegetables only include the ones consumers are already used to “eating as vegetables in their diet”, and consumers do not eat sugar cane “as a vegetable”.  Therefore, the “juice” of sugar cane is not legally “juice” in the United States.  The FDA’s concern with issuing these guidelines was not so much sugar cane juice itself as the use of “evaporated cane juice” (“ECJ”) as a label that some people say is just repackaging sugar as an additive sweetener in a way that misrepresents the product.  That is why the “FDA has criminally prosecuted manufacturers and has seized sweetened diluted juice products that were misrepresented for sale as 100% fruit juice” as “[t]hese beverages, which were formulated with water, sugars from cane or corn, artificial colors and flavors, and other ingredients that were not listed in the ingredient statement, misled consumers into believing that they were purchasing a 100% juice product” (http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/LabelingNutrition/ucm181491.htm).  Further, this battle over the nature of evaporated cane juice certainly did not end with the FDA’s non-binding guidance in 2009. Last year, Forbes reported on a “wave of food labeling class action litigation” involving “over 50 suits pending in federal courts with an ECJ claim” (http://www.forbes.com/sites/wlf/2014/03/04/fda-action-should-take-the-juice-out-of-some-food-labeling-class-actions/).

So, it does seem that fresh sugar cane juice is not what Americans would normally consider juice as such, but why would this keep the drink from being popular and available in the U.S., just as it is in Singapore?  Well, maybe that has something to do with the law as well.  If the FDA has said that sugar cane juice is not legally juice in the U.S., how would you order it at a bar back in the States?  Perhaps “sugar cane extract, extra stiff”, or more in line with the FDA guidance on ECJ, “another round of unevaporated sugar cane sweetener, bartender, if you please?  It would seem a bit difficult for this delicious drink to get a chance with American taste buds with such catchy names.

Still, there may be hope for sugar cane juice after all.  Amid the recent dramatic public interest in the use of ECJ in labeling, the FDA reopened the comment period for its draft guidance, announcing the following:

“We have not reached a final decision on the common or usual name for this ingredient and are reopening the comment period to request further comments, data, and information about the basic nature and characterizing properties of the ingredient sometimes declared as ‘evaporated cane juice,’ how this ingredient is produced, and how it compares with other sweeteners” (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-03-05/pdf/2014-04802.pdf).

Without advocating either of the FDA’s categorizations of vegetables (i.e., “animal, vegetable, or mineral”, or to paraphrase the second, “you know, the kinds of things you eat AS vegetables”), I would just like to suggest to my fellow Americans, when walking in exotic places like Singapore and Main Street, USA, just pause for a moment at the local watering hole and try out something new.  Order sugar cane juice without a second thought, and enjoy one of life’s simple pleasures.

R