Has anyone visited truthaboutsplenda.com ? This has to be the most ridiculous site ever! They make all these foolish statements about Splenda and how unsafe it is, but fail to back it up. They say all these things like "The sweetness of Splenda derives from a chlorocarbon chemical that contains three atoms of chlorine in every one of its molecules." I feel like writing to the authors of the site and saying so does my tap water! I drink the tap water, cook with it, wash clothes with it, clean with it and I have no problems or fears when using it. I can actually smell the chlorine in my tap water. I can't smell anything when I take a whiff of Splenda.

Another good one: "Johnson & Johnson claims that "Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar". Johnson & Johnson wants consumers to think that it is natural sugar without calories." Honestly, how many people thought Splenda was real sugar when they first heard of it? If it was sugar wouldn't they just call it sugar? Heck, if they could make calorie free real sugar I guarantee that's all they'd have to write on the package. It could be a plain white package with the only writing saying "CALORIE FREE SUGAR" and the company would probably sell 100x times what it sells now.

It's interesting that the site has a place for you to submit your "splenda story", but they have nowhere posted on the site stories from real people who really use splenda having adverse reactions to splenda. It's like the whole site is a whole bunch of what-ifs with opinionated statements to back up the what-ifs.

I really hope this site doesn't turn people off to using splenda. It's such a wonderful, lifesaving food. I don't think half the people on low carb diets could stay on them without the aid of splenda. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the site were sponsored or written by people affiliated with Equal or Sweet n Low.

I'm afraid I'm of the opposite opinion. I use Splenda sparingly because I do believe that it is not completely safe.

Well, it seems like a national pasttime to generate fear of artificial sweeteners. There was that whole Internet aspartame hoax that still lives on. Its funny, people don't question taking synthetic vitamins, derived from natural things I'm sure, or supplements with little quality control or oversight, but they're scared to death of using something that has to go through huge regulatory hoops to be proven safe in many, many countries.

And that's fine, no one needs to consume anything that they're wary of, but I think the hoaxes and Internet fear-mongering based upon made up stuff is pretty bad.

Good point, Nancy. My thinking is that people attack artificial sweeteners for a similar reason they attack low carb diets. By attacking these items, they are defending their current way of life/eating.

This site is a joke.

On the facts vs. fiction area, they first tell us that the manufacturer's claim that Splenda is "made from sugar" is false, but if you read the following paragraphs, they never deny that Splenda is made from sugar!

They claim it can made from the "molecule" raffinose, which is, by the way, a trisaccharide sugar, so therefore the manufacturer is lying because it isn't made from sucrose (what most people think of as "sugar"). Clearly the person who made the site avoided calling raffinose a sugar because this would imply that Sucralose is indeed capable of being made from sugar. Raffinose, by the way, certainly does have a taste. This is the sugar found in molasses.

It is true that chemically Sucralose is closest to galactose, not sucrose or glucose, but this does not disqualify it from being a sugar, despite its artificial nature. The trade name was clearly created because "1,6-Dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta-D-fructofuranosyl-4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha-D-galactopyranoside" would be too much of a mouthful.

The site is full of misleading half-truths like saying that the chlorine in Splenda is the same as the chlorine in pools and in pesticides (which is also the same as the chlorine in salt, the human body, foods, etc).

Sucralose is a sugar:

http://sci-toys.com/ingredients/sucralose.html

If you throw around enough scientific-sounding words, anything can be made to sound scary and dangerous.

For example: Dihydrogen monoxide.

If I told you that this substance causes untold property damage every year and that inhaling even a small amount can kill you, it sounds scary, right? You could create an entire website to proclaim the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide and, in fact, someone has...it was persuasive enough to convince one California town to ban it from within city limits until someone checked out the facts.



Guess what it really is?










Ready?











It's water.

THAT was funny, Lisa!!!

P.S. If you type in Splenda on google, you get these negative sites on Splenda, but there also comes up a site of a famous author and her family who have eaten Splenda for over 12 years - quite a bit of info on Splenda too. I try not to have too much Splenda or AS myself, but figure it does help to make life more interesting when it comes to sweets. I prefer Splenda to eating sugar, which I now know for sure is a real poison for me. I was terribly addicted and the minute I start to eat sugar, that addiction is woken up again full force.