Some vegans do not eat sugars which use animal bone char in the sugar refining process. Sugar comes from two sources – sugar cane and sugar beets.
Bone char is widely used by the sugar industry as a decolourising filter, which allows sugar to achieve its white colour. The bone char is made from the bones of cattle from countries like Afghanistan, Argentina, India and Pakistan. The bones are sold to traders who then sell them to the U.S. sugar industry. Source: Ordinary Vegan.
There are lots of vegan friendly sugar products on the market. Beet sugar is considered vegan because it’s not processed with bone char. Apart from Beet sugar, other words to look for which let you know the sugar is vegan include ‘Unrefined, USDA Organic and Raw’ as these let you know bone char was not used in your sugar.
According to Ordinary Vegan, in the UK, for example, Tate and Lyle and Billingtons sugars are free of any animal by-product. Silver Spoon's white sugar is vegan, but the brown one may not as it is refined with bone charcoal.
Always check the label.