Evaporated cane juice is sugar. Not a fruit juice, not a health-food sweetener, not a lighter alternative — cane sugar, under a name that made it sound like something else. It counts, gram for gram, on the Added Sugars line of the Nutrition Facts panel, exactly as cane sugar does. If you see it in an ingredient list, treat the product as sweetened.
The FDA said so directly. In May 2016, after a draft first published in October 2009 and a comment period reopened in March 2014, FDA issued final guidance titled "Ingredients Declared as Evaporated Cane Juice." Its conclusion: the term "is false or misleading because it suggests that the sweetener is 'juice' or is made from 'juice' and does not reveal that its basic nature and characterizing properties are those of a sugar." FDA advised that the ingredient "should instead be declared on food labels as 'sugar,' preceded by one or more truthful, non-misleading descriptors if the manufacturer so chooses (e.g., 'cane sugar')." One important nuance: FDA guidance is explicitly nonbinding — it "does not establish any rights for any person and is not binding on FDA or the public." This was a strong recommendation, not a ban, which is why the phrase still turns up on shelves a decade later.
Is it actually different from white sugar? Barely. In the comments FDA received while writing the guidance, one manufacturer's specification sheet showed evaporated cane juice at 99.0 to 99.8 percent sucrose — and USDA's FoodData Central puts granulated white sugar at 99.8 percent sucrose. The processing difference is real but small: evaporated cane juice goes through a single crystallization step, while most cane sweeteners including white sugar are re-crystallized multiple times. Some commenters argued to FDA that this leaves behind traces of molasses and minerals. FDA recorded that argument; it did not conclude the difference was nutritionally meaningful.
How to spot it on a label: "evaporated cane juice," "evaporated cane sugar," "dried cane syrup," "cane juice," or "cane juice crystals." It shows up most often on organic and natural-positioned kid products — organic yogurts, granola bars, fruit-and-grain snacks, cereals — precisely because it reads softer than "sugar" to a parent scanning a package. The practical move is simple: count it. The American Heart Association's 2016 scientific statement on added sugars in children recommends no more than 25 g of added sugars a day for kids 2 and up, and none at all before age 2. Evaporated cane juice spends that budget at full price.