It is with great dismay that I peruse diet blogs and websites to find people extolling the virtues of artificial substances as weight-loss aids. People, we were not meant to eat synthetically created foods! If we were, they would grow in gardens and meadows. Just imagine stumbling upon a wild tub of margarine on your next hike…talk about falling through the looking glass. But I digress.
Today let’s take a quick look at Splenda, the newest and trendiest of the artificial sweetener posse. Splenda, the trade name for Sucralose, was actually developed in the 1970s by researchers attempting to create a pesticide. When a professor of mine told this story she added that one researcher accidentally licked his finger during testing, found it to be sweet, and a new product was born. I’m not sure why a scientist would lick his finger in the lab, or why a substance that skilled and intelligent professionals had intended to go in the direction of toxicity ended up as a food item. Sucralose consists of sugar with chlorine atoms added. We are starting to learn that adding chlorine to things we consume is not necessarily the best idea, as in the case of our water supply: http://www.ghchealth.com/chlorine-cancer-and-heart-disease.html.
Interestingly, even the manufacturers of Splenda, McNeil Nutritionals, found concerning results when testing their product. Short term studies indicated shrunken thymus glands and enlarged liver and kidneys in test rodents. This suggests that processing Splenda caused extreme strain on important organs of detoxification. No long term studies were conducted prior to the FDA’s approval of Splenda, which is worrisome in itself – what’s their agenda for rushing this substance into the market? Perhaps Splenda has its own powerful backer, a “sugar daddy” if you will, kinda like Donald Rumsfeld was to aspartame…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErngurkB3J0. The list of Splenda’s potential side effects is lengthy and unappealing, ranging from acne, abdominal pain and anger to sugar craving (the irony!), tinnitus, and weight gain.
If you are using Splenda or another artificial sweetener because you are concerned about weight loss, there is actually some evidence indicating that these substances can contribute to obesity. Instead, try Stevia, an intensely sweet plant extract that actually has a stabilizing effect on blood sugar. If you’d just like to make some healthier changes to your diet, explore one of the many delicious natural sweetners such as raw agave, maple syrup, or brown rice syrup. Our bodies NEED sweet – it’s a grounding taste – and being healthy doesn’t mean you have to give it up. Just steer clear of the sweetners made for robots and stick with the ones made for humans.
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