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Splenda^®: Is It Safe Or Not?
Dr. Janet Hull reveals the scientific evidence strongly suggesting the chemical sweetener sucralose may harm your body. Visit Is Splenda Safe.com for more information!

The Sweetener Wars

The Sweetener Wars
By Dr. Janet Starr Hull

Did you know that over the past twenty years a war has been going on?  It’s a sweetener war. A battle for your dollar to satisfy an ever demanding “sweet-tooth.” It started in the United States, but has spread worldwide.  Thousands of people have been injured, and hundreds have lost their lives.  It’s a battle of health versus profit.

Medical doctors, holistic doctors, nutritionists, journalists, researchers, and professors – many people have fought for the truth about the dangers of artificial sweeteners. In this unseen battle, these men and women you do not know have been fighting to save you and to protect your children from injury and death. With more new chemical sweeteners on the market today, the battle is far from being won. 

After twenty years of NutraSweet (aspartame) dominating the sweetener market, people are realizing for themselves that aspartame really is a foul food chemical tragically harmful to their health. But the corporations deny there is a connection between aspartame and epidemic obesity, mental disturbances, and disease.  They have left the proof to the consumer, who is getting the picture now at great personal cost. The corporations work against the thousands of claims of bodily harm and death connected to artificial sweeteners.

Now, people think Johnson & Johnson’s Splenda, made from sucralose, has “come to the rescue” as the newest chemical sugar replacement “made from real sugar.” People don’t want to hear that it may be just as dangerous as aspartame, and this “white knight” of sweeteners is no better improvement. 

New chemical sweeteners (like sucralose) and the sweetener blends (aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame K blended together in one product) may be causing users to show signs of weight gain, disruption of sleep patterns, sexual dysfunction, increases in cancer, MS, Lupus, diabetes, and a list of epidemic degenerative diseases. The corporations continue to stand tough in their denial of any connection to chemical sweetener additives.

NEVER ENOUGH:  Artificial Sweeteners Create An Artificial Need

People forget that originally, sweetness was actually a by-product of food: nature’s way to encourage living creatures to consume nutritious foods. Forced sweetness, revved-up sweetness, and artificial sweetness - all altered foods - are a trap that addict people to sweeter tastes. 

Artificial sweeteners are marketed as  “being super-sized with more sweetness and no penalty.” People with eating disorders, children who are first learning about healthy food habits, diabetics and those with degenerative illnesses are being seduced by crafty advertising campaigns.  “And the added plethora of laboratory chemicals are entirely unnecessary to put in the public food supply,” says Kelly Goyen, CEO of Empirical Labs.

“We’ve done a great job of redefining sweetness, and it’s great to see it pay off,” says Anne Rewey, Splenda marketing director for Ft. Washington, Pennsylvania-based McNeil. “We’re committed to the leadership position in this market.”

According to the Conference of the American College of Physicians ‘we are talking about a plague of neurological diseases caused by these deadly poisons.’ (aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame-K)

As an educated consumer, you have a choice.  You can protect yourself from avoidable illnesses by simply being aware of the sweet deception surrounding you.

What Are Artificial Sweeteners and Why Are They Harmful?

Artificial sweeteners are a mix of unnatural chemicals combined in a laboratory that the body can’t process.  Basically, these chemicals either accumulate in your vital organs causing severe damage later, pollute your bloodstream causing severe damage later, or cause eventual mutations of your cells causing severe damage later.

NATURE VERSUS MANMADE:  The Key To “Safe” Food

In a nutshell, whatever nature creates for food is usually safe for your body.  Whatever man creates for food in the laboratory may not be accepted by your body, resulting in illness.  Our bodies are like machines (only natural) that operate today just as they did thousands of years ago. They don’t “understand” manmade chemicals and cannot fully process them. Forcing “foreign” materials into your body is like pouring shampoo into your car’s gas tank: it wasn’t meant to process it, so the engine stalls and stops working.

Which Artificial Sweeteners Should You Avoid?

• Sucralose (Splenda)
• Aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal®)
• Acesulfame-K (Sunett®)
• Neotame®
• Alitame®
• Cyclamate

CLEVER ADVERTISING:  What Was “Harmful” Yesterday Can Be “Hidden” Today!

Diet RC® cola was the first U.S. product with sucralose introduced in May 1998 with the tagline “No Aspartame” on the can.  Nowadays, the tagline has been dropped and is no longer on the can because sucralose is now found blended with aspartame in numerous products such as The Coca-Cola Company’s new C2 Coke®.

Is Saccharin Still Safe?

Despite the misleading report twenty years ago that saccharin causes cancer, in my opinion, saccharin remains the safest of all the artificial sweeteners.  Its simplicity may be the key to its ability to be used by the body as a sugar substitute.   Saccharin is not a “chemically combined” sweetener like the other artificial sweeteners, and is the safest choice for diabetics from this group of sugar replacements.

If you get confused on which colored packet sweetener is what, remember this good rule of thumb:  Color Matters

• The yellow packet (Splenda) = caution like in a traffic light
• The blue packet (Equal) = makes you feel blue
• The pink packet (Sweet’N’Low® or generic saccharin*) = you’re in the pink!

What Are Safe Natural Sweeteners?

• Stevia*
• Raw, unprocessed sugar (Sucanat®)
• Brown Rice Syrup
• Barley Malt
• Date Sugar
• Honey
• Maple Syrup
• Molasses
• Sorghum

*Safe for diabetics.  Stevia is similar to saccharin – use it sparingly or it is bitter – otherwise, it’s “naturally” delicious and a much healthier choice!

Secondary Natural Sweetener Choices (Use With Discretion)

• Fructose
• Fruit Juice Concentrate
• Juice Concentrate
• Sugar alcohols (Polyols)
• Isomalt
• Lactitol
• Malitol
• Mannitol
• Sorbitol
• Xylitol
• Turbinado® Sugar
• Tagatose

SPLENDA: THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

What Exactly Is Splenda?

Splenda is the trade name for sucralose, a relatively new manmade, artificial sweetener. Johnson & Johnson bought the rights in 1998 to sell sucralose in the United States as Splenda. Its basic characteristics are:

• Its taste is nearly identical to sugar
• Its “trademark” inability to break down in processing or in storage

Why is Splenda potentially harmful?

It contains chlorine, which is a carcinogen. ¹The Splenda marketers insure it is chemically “bound” so it cannot be “released” in the body during digestion.  I question that, and wonder if this artificial chemical can safely pass through the human body.  Wait until you read what chlorine can do to the body.  Bad news.

Sucralose (Splenda) is a chlorocarbon - a chlorine-containing compound. The chlorocarbons have long been known for causing organ, genetic, and reproductive damage. It should be no surprise, then, that testing of sucralose revealed organ, genetic, and reproductive damage.  Research on lab rats showed up to forty percent shrinkage of the thymus gland: a gland that is the very foundation of our immune system. ²The contamination of water supplies by chlorocarbons is a serious problem in most European countries today, making many people very ill. Due to the chlorine content in Splenda, sucralose can inflame swelling of the liver and kidneys, and calcification of the kidney, as shown in animal studies. ³If you experience kidney pain, cramping, or an irritated bladder after using sucralose, stop using it immediately.

Sucralose is patented as a manmade “chlorinated sucrose sweetener” and it is registered as “chlorinated sucrose.” ⁴Chlorinated sucrose is not found anywhere in nature, like real sugar (sucrose) that is extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets. If it were, it would be a carcinogen!

1. Chlorine facts: http://www.bidness.com/esd/cl2facts.htm

2. Bellin J. New Scientist. pg 13. Nov 23, 1991.

Posted on February 7, 2005 in Politics | Link To This Entry | Comments (0)

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