Grey Matters!
by Bob Reece
written to inform and inspire thought about issues of health, wealth and other grey matter...
I
like

telling this true story since my wife is from India, and be- The real deception comes now: Splenda® No Calorie
cause the “discovery” of Splenda originates back to London Sweetener is specifically marketed as “suitable for people with
in 1975. It involves a young Indian student who was studying diabetes” (read their “Nutritional Facts” label), as it will not
insecticides while doing graduate work in chemistry. He was raise blood sugar levels. The unsuspecting public is misled once
looking for ways to kill insects when one day he misunderstood again because of a manufacturing process that begins with only
the instructions from his boss, who one (1) percent sucralose (remember
said to be sure to “test” his efforts. He
thought the instructions were to “taste”
Made From Sugar,
600 x sweeter than sugar), which is then
mixed with bulking agents like dextrose,
the product, and when he did as told, sucrose, and maltodextrin. Maltodextrin
imagine the surprise when he reported
So it Tastes
is just another form of high-fructose corn
that this highly toxic liquid was 600 syrup (HFCS).
times sweeter than plain old sugar.
Like Sugar...
According to the book Sweet De-
This synthetic chemical was later to ception by Dr. Joseph Mercola, we need
become known as sucralose (Splenda) to thank the FDA for food labeling laws
and eventually approved for human and the deception in allowing Splenda
consumption by our ever-so-diligent to be defined as “sugar-free”—but note
FDA (Food and Drug Administration) on that it is only if the serving size is less
April 1, 1998 – April Fools Day. than .5 grams of sugar. And it is “calo-
Splenda is the brand name for su- rie-free” if the serving size is less than
cralose and should not be confused 5 calories. A 1-gram packet of Splenda
with the naturally found sucrose which coincidently contains just 4 calories,
is extracted from plants as ordinary sug- which very conveniently fits their legal
ar. Sucralose begins as a sugar molecule definition of “calorie-free”.
but is chemically changed to a synthetic Meanwhile, HFCS is twenty times
that includes the addition of three highly sweeter than cane sugar (and cheaper)
poisonous chlorine molecules in a pat- and is now almost the exclusive caloric
ented five-step process. It is then marketed as a “healthful” and sweetener used in the soft drink industry. Dr. Mercola believes
“natural” product, although as a chemical substance, it is not HFCS plays a very significant role in the obesity epidemic, and
recognized as sugar by the body. It is therefore not metabolized, it is also these “bulking agents” that make the sweeteners more
which is a necessary step for the maintenance of life. palatable and easy to bake with. Imagine whipping up a batch
Although we find sucralose in many manufactured prod- of brownies using one cup of Splenda® No Calorie Sweetener,
ucts, it cannot be sold to individual consumers and is available only to later read that the cup contained 96 calories and 32
only in quantities of no less than one kilogram at a cost of ap- grams of carbohydrates. Sort of makes your blood sugar rise just
proximately $450 per kilogram. thinking about it.
Making matters even worse, Splenda is marketed as hav- You may by now be asking if Splenda is as safe as they
ing zero calories by McNeil Nutritionals, which is a division claim it to be? I unfortunately do not have the time or space to
of Johnson & Johnson. It is not true that there are zero calories discuss the very limited amount of known testing, although it is
– stay with me here – since it is only that if your body had the important to mention that Splenda is a food additive and not a
capacity to metabolize this chemical substance, it would only drug, and thus not subject to the more rigorous number of stud-
then have “zero” calories. ies required to receive FDA approval. Which brings to mind the
prescription drug Vioxx that was subjected to a much, much
greater number of clinical trials under the watchful eyes of the
FDA, and yet was found to have killed some 55,000 people
prior to voluntary withdrawal by Merck & Co.
Nearly all “testing” appears to have been done on animals
and there have been no long-term toxicity studies published
until after the FDA approved sucralose for human consumption
eleven years ago this month – a test which lasted only three
(3) months. There are no known tests on pregnant women or
children and it appears the very large majority of testing has
been conducted in-house by McNeil Nutritionals. Some people
might even call that a conflict of interest.
And lastly a few words for just some of the reported side
effects from this wonderful product:
34
NaturalNutmeg.com
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