beware of sugar substitutes

[pinksharkazulu]

With the hype surrounding childhood obesity I always make an effort to feed my children healthily and was therefore pleased to see an advertisement for a no-calorie sweetener that can be used in cooking. The advertisement for Splenda shows a mother feeding her family pancakes, custard and gingerbread men made using this product. I thought I would do a bit of research on the product before I used it and I was really shocked at what I found.

The manufacturing process of Splenda?s main ingredient sucralose, resembles a toxic nightmare. This ?family friendly? product undergoes a chemical process using chlorine and carbon monoxide to make phosgene ? a lethal gas used during the First World War - which removes the natural oxygen and hydrogen molecules found in sugar, replacing them with halogen chlorine.

Now common sense tells me that a sweetener that uses a chemical process to make it 600 times sweeter than normal sugar can?t possibly be safe for human consumption and further research proved me right. The website www.mercola.com/2003/nov/8/splenda_dangers.htm contains testimonials from people who have suffered a range of symptoms as a result of using Splenda or products containing sucralose, including depression, anxiety attacks, itchy, inflamed skin, gastro problems, lack of motivation and general lethargy.

Anyway, needless to say I am not going near the stuff and certainly won?t be feeding it to my children. Surely if there is any risk whatsoever that this product is hazardous, as it clearly is, then it should not be allowed to be advertised as a product that is perfect for all the family.

I always avoid artificial sweetners anyway as I'm allergic to aspartame and I find the potential side effects to two of the main artificial sweetners quite frightening.

Kids need calories - sugar is only really an issue with teeth and making sure it's part of a balanced diet. Same with butter - would far rather they had small amounts of the real thing than lots of over-processed butter substitute.

I NEVER consume artificial sweetners or allow my child to.

In addition to being crap, they taste crap as well.

Thanks for the info pinksharkazulu - it really galls me when products marketed at children are packed full of dangerous additives

heres the link{http://www.mercola.com/2003/nov/8/splenda_dangers.htm\link}

ooops link

I had terrible nightmares on the three occasions I tried splenda, so never touched it again!

Well i thought it couldmnt be 'good for you' (and would NEVER dream of buying / using it or allowing my charges too.... only REAL sugar for them... no chemaical sweetening carconagenic stuff!)

Im really pleased ro know that, so know when people ask me why i can give them the answer to why i wont touch such crap....

why oh why do companies do this??

Well, I do use splenda, infact I've just in the last 6 months decided that out of all the sweetners splenda claim to be the healthiest I am obviously aware that sweetners are perhaps not the best thing for me to be eating so thats why I changed to this. How do they manage to get away with this crap?

Ha, had to bite my tongue today. DD2 had her 3.5 checkup with the schools service dentist. On and on she goes about hidden sugar in food...give them tuc crackers and crisps for break, yada yada blahh. I honestly believe that kids need sugar and fat, not hydrogenated vegetable oil and artificial sweetener. When I gave up aspartame the withdrawal was far worse than giving up fags. No way would I let my girls touch the stuff.

I don't get why you would substitute sugar with anything. Sugar in moderation is fine. Artifical sweetners? No thanks.

i always buy things with suger in rather than suger free. tho have got myself some diet coke, as cant give up the bubbly stuff just yet, the taste is putting me off tho. its leaves a weird aftertaste.

I will say it is only me in the house that uses the sweetners, Dh and DS have sugar if ever he needs it which is actually not that often.

Me, I'm a serial dieter and it's just I am now used to it all. BUT, I will try and give up - will let you know of any withdrawal symptoms, hopefully one of them will be I actually loose some bloody weight!

I'm not trying to be contraversial here but you will propbably find an awful lot of chemical processes are used in a whole range of products - the processes themselves may sound a bit iffy - but the end products are fine.

I've read something somewhere sometime (so very vague) the some brands of sugars are a bit iffy as well. I'll see if I can track something down, hang on.

Heres the application for its use on food
here

all ingredients are thoroughly vetted before they can be use for general consumption

Don't quote me but I'm sure that i've heard that some sugar substitutes can alter the way your body metabolises sugars and make it more diffecult to lose weight. Anyone else heard of this cause I can't remember where I heard it.

We have chlorine in us, quite naturaly.

And Sodium, a metal that bursts into flame in contact with water. And Phosphorus and all sorts of other 'dangerous' chemicals.

In biology and chemistry it is how things ftr together that makes them safe of dangerous so it isn't too helpful to zoom in on specific chemicals.

For example Sodium, flamable metal add chorine, leathal gas =Table salt

Hydrogen Explosive gas and oxygen (supports burning) =water

Oh goodness, not that mercola site again. It's not exactly reputable.

Not hugely keen on artificial sweeteners - but "chemical processes" don't scare me. If you read a description of the chemical processes undergone by sugar in your body it would probably sound a bit scary. As hmb says, if you take things out of context you can really get hold of the wrong end of the stick. Anyway, cooking itself is just another branch of biochemistry...

I think some of you are missing the point. Adults are able to make an informed choice about what they feed themselves. Ie many of us drink caffeine, alcohol and eat salt because we like the taste, however we wouldn't dream of giving this stuff to our kids. The advert for Splenda is clearly aimed at all the family, misleading parents into believing that it is safe for kids. My problem is not so much with the product itself, but how it is being marketed.

I'm with you on sugar substitutes being horrible, I try to absolutely minimise my exposure, and my kids' exposure, to these things.

I just also think the mercola site is horrible.

happymerryberries - my dh would love you! He is a chemist and whenever I go on about "chemicals" in food he always reminds me that chemicals are not necessarily bad!
Having said that, when it comes to food I do believe that natural is best and avoid artificial sweetners, hydrogenated fats etc.

Well, yes, isn't everything a "chemical", including water?

I get annoyed by people assuming natural = good. Arsenic is natural, isn't it?

My ds is sensitive to all refined sugars so he does have things with artificial sweeteners sometimes. I keep these products to a minimum but I don't want to deny him all sweets etc and if he has sugar he climbs the walls. I don't give him stuff like Splenda though. All the artificial sweeteners he has are already in a product.