Splenda

Sucralose (sold as Splenda) is the fastest growing artificial sweetener on the market. It is found in everything from frozen deserts, to sodas, to cookies, gum, and candies. It is also sold in bulk for baking and is in packets for sweetening coffee or tea. Many people on the low-sugar craze have switched to this dangerous toxin.

I hope everyone is avoiding artificial sweeteners, but if you still consume them, here is some important information:

Splenda is NOT natural, despite its deceptive marketing claims. Splenda is the trade name for sucralose, a synthetic compound stumbled upon in 1976 by scientists in Britain seeking a new PESTICIDE formula.

It is true that the Splenda molecule is comprised of sucrose (sugar) — except that 3 of the hydroxyl groups in the molecule have been replaced by three chlorine atoms. So the marketing gimmick of “Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar.” is really deceptive because it leads some people to believe that Splenda is a natural sweetener and therefore healthier, which is obviously not true.

Sucralose is not metabolized by the body so it has no calories. And, the reason people use it in baking is that the chlorine that prevents it from being absorbed by the body also gives it the ability to withstand enough heat so it doesn’t lose its flavor.

Most independent scientific researchers have said that Sucralose has more in common with pesticides than sugar, because the bonds holding the carbon and chlorine atoms together are more characteristic of a chlorocarbon than a salt — and most pesticides are chlorocarbons.

In an interesting manipulation of facts, the FDA approved the sweetener in 1998, despite the fact that tests showed mutagenic carcinogens in sucralose that also caused shrunken thymus glands, enlarged livers, and kidney disorders. In approving sucralose, the FDA accepted the industry studies, claiming that the study was valid because it was done on rats, and rats metabolize sucralose more like humans than any other animals used for testing.

However, on a recent study that shows Splenda significantly decreases beneficial gut flora, the FDA decided that because these studies were not based on human tests, they were not conclusive and so they dismissed the negative findings because the study was done on rats.