Splenda Kills

The McNeil Nutritional Company, producers of Splenda, have gone to great lengths to suggest that Splenda is natural and safe because it is made from sugar. True it starts with sugar, but, after the sugar has been treated with trityl chloride, acetic anhydride, hydrogen chloride, thionyl chloride, and methanol, in the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, toluene, methyl isobutyl ketone, acetic acid, benzyltriammonium chloride, and sodium methoxide, it is anything but a sugar molecule. In the end, a chlorinated hydrocarbon molecule results.

Nowhere in nature is there any form of sugar that remotely resembles the resulting chlorinated hydrocarbon known as sucralose aka Splenda. All natural disaccharides or sugars contain two sugar units, one being glucose. Since sucralose has no glucose unit, your body does not have the enzymes to break it down and digest it.

So Sucralose Is Unnatural, But Is It Also Unsafe?
According to Splenda.com, we shouldn't worry about the chlorine in sucralose, as it is a safe and natural part of our food supply, found in table salt, mushrooms and lettuce for example.

The truth is there is no chlorine found in any food or in table salt. There is chloride however. Chlorine is a highly reactive element which does not exist by itself in nature but only in combination with other elements in the form of chloride.

The manufacturing of Splenda involves the artificial replacement of hydrogen atoms in sugar with chlorine atoms and forces the chlorine atoms to form a covalent bond with carbon. Molecules which contain bonds between chlorine and carbons are called chlorocarbons or organochlorines.

Organochlorides are harmful to life and are a group mainly used as pesticides such as DDT. In addition, they are fat soluble and tend to accumulate in organ tissues that are high in fat, such as your brain. And even worse - they are permanently stored there. In order to disassociate itself from the organochlorine group of chemicals, McNeil Nutritionals has conveniently created their own chemical name for sucralose. Their literature states that it is a chloro-carbohydrate. No matter what it is called, the simple fact remains that it is indeed an organochlorine.

But Wait, There's More!
Sucralose breaks down into other products when ingested. These products include 1,6 dichloro, 1,6-dideoxyfructose, 4-chloro-4-deoxygalactose. It also has the potential to break down into the highly toxic chlorosugar 6-GC. These products cause liver toxicity, depletion of your body's ability to detoxify, mutagenic activity, binding to the DNA in your liver and small intestine, enlarged livers, low birth weight, maternal and fetal toxicity.

The Splenda.com website states that "there are no known side effects" and "No toxicity" associated with sucralose use. However, there have been hundreds of testimonials from people using the product identifying the following side effects - skin rashes, shortness of breath, headaches, swelling of the eyes and face, bloating, gas, constipation, nausea, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, chest pains, palpitations, joint pains, seizures, anxiety, panic, insomnia, depression, numbness, night sweats and bleeding without clotting.

Sometimes people experience symptoms like those mentioned above and do not connect it with the use of an artificial sweetener - sucralose or aspartame. If you have any symptoms and consume artificial sweeteners, try to eliminate them from your diet for a week or more to see if the sweetener is the cause. And, it you know you have symptoms from a sweetener, you can go to SweetDeception.com/Report and find out how to report your symptoms to the FDA.

As an educated consumer you simply cannot take everything you are told at face value - not from manufacturers, not from the FDA, and not even from physicians. Ask questions. The more answers you know, the more empowered you will be to make the right choice for you.

Photo is an actual splenda related side effect. Taken from:http://www.mercola.com/imageserver/public/2004/mar/31/splenda_reaction01a.jpg

Splenda, like all artificial sweeteners is mixed with bulking agents. What the unsuspecting public does not realize is that these bulking agents are other forms of SUGAR.

Dextrose and maltodextrin are both forms of corn sugar and corn sugar, mostly in the form of high fructose corn syrup has played a role in the obesity epidemic. Chronically elevated blood sugars can lead to obesity and diabetes.

99% of Splenda no calorie sweetener is sugar. It is only 1% surcalose.

Food labeling laws legally allow them to describe their product as sugar free if the serving size is .5 grams of sugar and "calorie free" if the serving size is less than 5 calories. (This is why the serving size on a bag of splenda is miniscule (1 tsp) for the granular and 1 gram for the packets.)

The reseach shows that sucralose does not raise blood sugar levels and is therefore "safe" for diabetics. There is NO research studies to show that the mixture of sucralose and corn sugars does not raise blood sugars.

Dr. Richard Bernstein, a diabetologist with over twenty-three years of experiences has this to say:
"When artificial sweeteners are sold in powdered form, under such names as Sweet'n Low, Equal, The Sweet One, Sunett, Sugar Twin, Splenda No Calorie Sweetener and others, these products usually contain sugar (maltodextrin/dextrose) in increase bulk, and will rapidly raise blood sugar."

The carbohydrate count in Splenda No Calorie Sweetener starts adding up in larger doses that are required for recipes. One cup would rapidly raise the blood sugars of a diabetic - all when he or she thinks its calorie and sugar free.

Photo from: http://www.stylishandtrendy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/obesity_buffets.jpg

Stevia is an all natural sweetener made from the South American herb by the name of Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni. It is estimated to be two to three hundred times sweeter than sugar. If you have weight or blood sugar issues, stevia can be an acceptable alternative to other natural sweeteners. It has no calories and no effect on blood sugar levels. If you must use a sweetener, this is probably the safest as it is the least processed and has the highest density of sweetness per calorie of carbohydrate.

For centuries stevia has been used as a traditional remedy for diabetes and gum disease among the indigenous people of Paraguay and other South American countries. Japan has been using stevia as a sweetener for over thirty years in a number of different foods and beverages with not a single reported side effect. They even use it in their version of diet coke. Since the 1970's, the Japanese have conducted extensive studies on it and have found it to be absolutely safe. Dr. Daniel Mowrey who holds a doctorate in psychopharmacology and has studied stevia extensively, recently had this to say about its safety. " ..Few substances have ever yielded such consistently negative results in toxicity as stevia.."

Until recently, stevia was not approved for use as an actual sweetener in the United States even though every single toxicity test imaginable has been performed on it at one time or another with completely negative results. Stevia was basically blackballed by the FDA in order to protect the artificial sweetener companies.

You can now get stevia for use as a sweetener but be careful to check what it is mixed with as a bulking agent. As with Splenda, you may be consuming other forms of sugars or worse, other types of artificial sweeteners and not even be aware of it.

For more information on stevia check out the following site:

http://www.stevia.com/