The Truth About Splenda, Equal, and Sugar? Depends On Who You Ask

By Linda Orlando

Centuries ago, refined sugar was a rare luxury reserved for the very rich, and most common people didn’t even know what it tasted like. Now, after several hundred years of an increasingly industrialized society, practically everyone the world over has at least tasted sugar, and it is such a commonplace condiment in most restaurants and many households that it is hard to imagine a world without the tiny white granules making life sweeter. But over the course of the last few decades, the critics of sugar have become more numerous and more vocal, with more and more research studies, books, and articles detailing the evils of overindulgence of sugar. It can rot your teeth, it can give you diabetes, it can make you gain weight—it can cause a whole host of horrible eventualities for those who eat it on a regular basis! Despite the fact that sugar has been around for centuries, the girth of Americans has been expanding for only the last few decades, so obviously our tastes have changed and our lifestyles have become more sedentary. So people nowadays feel compelled to avoid sugar at all costs. But sweetness is something that few people can do without, particularly in today’s society, and as a result the market for artificial sweeteners has steadily grown.

The first widely used artificial sweetener was saccharin, marketed under various brand names, most commonly Sweet N’ Low. Although saccharin enjoyed great popularity for years after it was introduced, later research studies showing a link to cancer in lab rats caused many regular users to abandon it and return to using sugar. And then came aspartame. Aspartame, marketed under the names NutraSweet, Equal, and others, became popular immediately as an alternative to the cancer-causing saccharin, and before long it seemed as though every single dietary product on the market contained aspartame. But then people started hearing whispers of a conspiracy to have aspartame approved by the FDA despite research studies showing how harmful it can be. The whispers steadily turned into roars, and now there are hundreds of websites, books, journal articles, and research studies devoted to publicizing the dangers of aspartame. Because many of those claims are based in a solid foundation of research, the public approval of aspartame began to wane slightly at the end of the 20th century, with many doctors advising their patients to stop using it, and many regular users once again returning to sugar.

And then came Splenda. The American public was understandably a bit gun-shy about artificial sweeteners, but because of the rapidly advancing interest in low-carb dieting begun by the Atkins Diet Revolution books, Splenda appears to have transcended the public’s fears. Splenda’s initial appearance on the consumer market was as an ingredient in Diet Rite cola in 1998, with its initial target audience being diabetics, but it was soon swept up in the low-carb craze of the 21st century. Splenda began being sold as a standalone product in 1999, and now it is by far the top-selling non-sugar sweetener. Sales of real sugar are down, and major soft drink manufacturers are frantically working to get their Splenda-ized products to market. Coke’s version was just released a few weeks ago. Splenda sales reach almost $200 million a year, and its manufacturer has had trouble keeping up the demand.

The main selling point of Splenda, according to its advertising slogan, is that it is "made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar." This sounds absolutely impossible, since Splenda is calorie-free, so a little exploration on the manufacturer’s website should clear things up—but it really doesn’t. A one-paragraph summary of the "patented, multistep process" says that they begin with sugar and convert it, at the molecular level, to sucralose, which is an "essentially inert" ingredient. A spokeswoman explains that pure sucralose is 600 times as sweet as sugar, so it has to be combined with granular "bulking ingredients" for consumers to use it in a tabletop powdered version. Since its introduction, Splenda has rapidly attained a rather aristocratic bearing among artificial sweeteners; the Splenda logo on dietetic products is reminiscent of the "Intel Inside" assurance on personal computers.

The popularity of Splenda, while exciting and promising to consumers in their quest for sweetness without guilt, has ignited an interesting war of words among the three giants of the sweetness industry. According to Merisant, the makers of Equal, Splenda’s marketers have duped their fans, and the "made from sugar" claim tricks consumers into thinking that Splenda is all natural. Merisant has sued Tate & Lyle, the U.K.-based manufacturers of Splenda, to get them to clear up the confusion. And now the Sugar Association has jumped into the fray as well, with a specific website (www.truthaboutsplenda.com) containing the sort of all-out assault on a rival that is almost never seen in consumer marketing. The site trumpets, ''Splenda is not natural and does not taste like sugar. The sweetness of Splenda derives from a chlorocarbon chemical that contains three atoms of chlorine in every one of its molecules.'' It goes on to say that Splenda consumers ''are actually eating chlorine,'' and it suggests that the product is unsafe and has not been thoroughly tested. The site sports several articles supporting their claims, as well as a forum for people to share their personal stories and opinions, and links to anti-Splenda action groups. As for the Splenda camp’s reaction to this smear campaign, they have now sued the Sugar Association for making ''false and misleading claims.''

So the questions for the consumer now seem to be painfully clear. Is it better to attempt to cut calories by filling your body with something artificial that doesn’t quite taste like sugar and might do you bodily harm over the long haul? Or is it better to use the old tried-and-true sweetener, refined sugar, which has been proven to do you bodily harm over the long haul if you use too much? The correct answer depends on who you ask. But there’s plenty of information available to help you come up with your own answer. Be an informed consumer and do your research, and then decide how much you’re willing to risk to satisfy your sweet tooth.