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hoefla-
I know, right? But yeah, it's like fizzykorn says, it's to make sure there's a homogenous amount of molasses in the sugar as it's supposed to taste lighter.
People tend to associate it with brown rice, or wholemeal bread - it looks less processed than the alternative, so we assume that it is. I didn't know about the juice bits, for eg, and assumed they must be left in rather than added. UNTIL NOW!
bothwell
If you use demerara sugar in baking then the finished product will generally end up tasting a little less sweet than if you used brown sugar. If you use it in, say, coffee, you'll get a deeper, treacly flavour from it than you would brown sugar - though not as much as you would using muscovado.
Demerara (and Muscovado) is made by spinning sugar cane crystals in a centrifuge. The liquid that comes off is refined into molasses (which ends up being further refined into treacle, if you're into that kind of thing). The less time a sugar has spent in the centrifuge, the more molasses it contains, so the more of a treacle flavour it'll have - muscovado gets this treatment for less time than demerara, so it's darker and stronger. Brown sugar is made by adding refined molasses to white sugar, with the attendant reduction in strength.
If you're eating chunks of any of them then you need to take a good, hard look at your life choices.