Splendifferous

I think it’s impossible to convey just how much of a sweet tooth I have. I grew up in a house where both my mom and my godmother are both excellent bakers and they have almost a fanatical devotion to butter and anything relating to cheesecake. Therefore, I tend to avoid bitter drinks and use obscene amounts of sweetener even in naturally sweet teas. Since my mom essentially outlawed table sugar for beverage use during one of our diets many years ago, I’ve gotten in the habit of using Splenda.

I get in bit of a sticky situation when I drink tea with my boyfriend. For a while I meant to investigate whether or not Splenda was a safe food but never got around to it. Instead I would end up using a lot of honey as a sweetener and cringing at how “bitter” my chamomile tea was (I’m hopeless, I know!).

Well, it turns out a lot of people are concerned about Splenda’s safety, but for a bunch of different reasons. Their FAQ page is full of questions like “does sucralose cause headaches/migraines?” and “does Splenda Brand Sweetener affect the thymus?” This is understandable because over the past few years there have been some questions as to whether or not a chemically created calorie-free sweetener is the root of several health problems.
http://www.issplendasafe.com/

I can understand that the Splenda company doesn’t want to answer thousands of emails asking if their product is safe for pregnant women, so it’s smart that they actually used their FAQ page to answer some frequently asked questions.

As I scrolled down to the bottom I finally found questions relating to food allergies. The most obvious one was pertaining to gluten. The answer says that they do not use any grain ingredients during the manufacture of Splenda, however they don’t test the final product for gluten. This makes sense because if they weren’t using gluten in the first place, why would they check it afterward? However, some people including myself sometimes get a little antsy about stuff like this, so I’m glad they put it in. There is no information about casein or gluten, however one of the Splenda products, their “Minis”, contain lactose. I would imagine that they use milk as a binding agent for the little tablets of sweetener so that would explain it.

By a bit of luck (if you can call it that) I found that Splenda is derived from corn. Yes, corn is king still. Surprisingly I didn’t find this information under the “What is Splenda made out of?” questions, but rather one asking if it was made from any ingredients derived from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). If you’re worried about that, no Splenda does not have GMOs, however it is derived from the starches in corn. I probably won’t use Splenda around my boyfriend even though his reactions to corn aren’t that severe because I am not really comfortable with using artificial sweeteners. Through my research for this blog and through shopping and cooking with my boyfriend I’ve started to value natural sources of nutrients more than before, so I will probably switch to a raw sugar sweetener soon. Also, I think that I’ve been indulging my sweet tooth too much with Splenda. I need to work on enjoying foods that can’t rot your teeth on contact!

(image from here. Sorry for the gruesome imagery, but I found it horrifying and cute at the same time. That's what I find when I Google image search "sweet tooth"!)