[clug] [OT] pure/white was Re: Submerged PC (White Oil) & TV Capture Cards

[Alex Satrapa]

On 06/01/2010, at 18:12 , Sam Couter wrote:

> White sugar is also more pure precisely because it has been refined more.


Raw sugar is technically closer in the production chain to the sap of the sugar cane so it is "more pure" where one uses "pure" to mean "closer to the natural source" or "not tampered with"†.  But there are better words for those uses of "pure" such as "raw" and "pristine".  For example "raw sugar", or "pristine tropical paradise".

I'd head off on a rant about Political Correctness and the Cult of Natural, but I'm sure people on this list are already fully aware that "natural" is not synonymous with "good for you" - and neither is "processed" synonymous with "bad for you".  Suffice it to say that crude oil and "Angel's Trumpet" are natural, while soap and penicillin are processed.

Apologies,
Alex

† or perhaps even "free of sin" where one defines industrial processes as being "sinful", which is the sense of "pure" that I sense some people are using when referring to food.