The Potential Dangers of Sucralose (Splenda?)
One key thing our public needs to learn is don't believe anything you read that comes from a food marketer or someone trying to make money off you - including the 'next fad in nutrition' - whether it's low fat, digestive health, or no-cal sweeteners. They're always just jumping on the bandwagon of the next big thing to cash in before the ever-fickle American public tires of it and moves onto the next nutrition fad, and it's working for them at least, but the American public health picture is losing big right now as they continually fall prey to these company gimmicks revolving around nutrition, food & diets.
Always get the facts first before you try a product, as 110% of the time marketers tweak food labels and basically flat out lie as our FDA sets the bar so low that if they have only a small % of certain negative ingredients they can still say it has 'zero this' and 'zero that' on the label and get away with it legally. Or they can say something is pesticide free if it was not sprayed directly, but still was produced on a farm that uses pesticides and could have air transfered....there are numerous ways these jerks fool with the truth to get you to buy, buy, buy....
There is still nothing on any shelf in any market that will supercede the nutritient benefits of the foods God put on this earth for us humans, and there never will be. Science cannot recreate or improve nature, no matter how hard it tries to claim it can and does.
In fact, there is nothing on any shelf in any market that your body requires or needs & most of it actually counteracts your good health & breaks down your bodies internal natural healthy processes, and not for the good.
Here is a perfect example of how well food marketing can brainwash people into thinking they're putting something healthy in their bodies as they choose to rely on the packaging & trust the companies trying to make money on their lack of nutrition knowledge, vs. researching and finding the facts about what they're putting into their bodies first - and it's not good news folks: The Potential Dangers of Splenda (Sucralose)
Like most unnatural, synthetic, chemical junk that we are not naturally meant to eat, there are no longterm studies yet that show effects of use of ingesting Splenda for years on end, yet the FDA allows them to be pushed through to market and sold to the public not knowing what will happen down the road to people longterm as this unnatural product takes root in the body & builds up over time.
Even better if you dig, you'll find the company producing it foolingly named McNeil Nutritionals is really J&J / Johnson & Johnson - isn't it interesting how marketing works? We rename ourselves something that sounds health related and people all of the sudden believe we are a legitimate nutrition source, when we're actually just white-coated scientists fooling with nature in a lab and creating something unnatural & telling people it's good for them.
And while we're at it, we'll add a few chlorine compounds to Splenda in the lab so the body won't be able to digest it, so we'll avoid the NATURAL process of digestion altogether so it creates a situation where no calories are absorbed, and even though there are calories truly in the product and they get metabolized somewhere in the body, but we don't know where they're going, or what harm they're causing when they get there, maybe like creating cancerous cells over time, what the heck - we've got a product we can claim has no calories and the American public will just eat that up, so sell the thing, chlorine in it or not - what's the big deal if people eat a little chlorine as long we become millionaires off the product? A little lie never hurt anyone, right?
WAKEUP AMERICA -- And we wonder why our country has some of the highest rates of cancer in the world? Do you think European or other countries are taking in as much of this chemical junk as Americans are? Trust me they're not, because in their countries the people take a more active role in voting on food production issues, and the government also permits them to be active participants in determining the quality of food they're ingesting.
Not the US government folks, because it's all about what food manufacturer or big pharmaceutical is paying the FDA off to get their product pushed through to market with minimal testing - and who cares if a couple thousand lives are lost, right?? ..as long as their stock portfolios look good from the kickbacks they're receiving.
I'll say it again, science will never top nature, folks -
God didn't make sucralose, man did - and if it was good for us, it would have been handmade by God many years ago.
Stick to what He made for us to eat, and you will never go wrong - I don't know about you, but a healthful, long life free from illness sounds a LOT more appetizing than something that sounds as horrifying as lab-created, chlorine-filled "sucralose".
For safe sweetener alternatives that are from NATURE and won't add empty calories to your food plan, try stevia (be sure it's the all natural product). It is available at Trader Joes or your local health food store. Stevia is starting to become more readily available at grocery market chains.
Another lo-cal healthy sweetener option is xylitol, which is comprised from natural occuring sweeteners in fruits.
If you're not so concerned with caloric content blue agave syrup is a final natural sweetener option, although with the hefty amount of caloric content this product packs, I would recommend use of this in minimal amounts on infrequent occasions, i.e. make stevia your daily sweetener, but for an occasional treat to switch your taste up use blue agave.
Heather Dube - Health & Wellness Coach
Wellcoaches LWC Trainee, NASM CPT, BA Psychology
hdube@youandimprovedcoaching.com /
"Perhaps the only limits to the human mind are those we believe in." - W. Harman
web:
http://www.youandimprovedcoaching.comblog: http://healthmatters.vox.com/
Comments
Be proud of your nutrition knowledge & share it with as many others as possible, you can help a lot of people in building their own health knowledge, and passing that on can only be a good thing. As much as informed individuals can fight the surge of nutrition misinformation out there, the more the better!
Thanks for sharing, and offering your thoughts on this post.
I avoid all the artificials except for my occasional indulgence in diet coke. I think if people really realized that regular natural sugar has only 16 calories a teaspoon they might look to avoid some other foods rather than using those artifical sweeteners. But I have not been able to totally give up the diet coke yet, despite the fact that I know it's bad for me in sooooo many ways!
I find most people also think Sucralose is similar to fructose, and natural....and thus I met a variety of people this week drinking that G2, lo cal gatorade at the gym, and telling me it was all natural. Eeek. (Never mind that their 30 min workout doesnt really justify gatorade...)....
Good that you're tuned into this stuff, definitely share your feedback with those people you see carrying that junk to the gym to drink if they're open-minded to listen to you!
That is interesting, I have never heard someone phrase it that way, that the public relates sucralose to fructose - great point! I can see why they would mistake it as so - it's very sad all these misconceptions in regards to what is healthy and what is not. Just keep educating as many people as you can where you have information that can help them & feel free to share my blog! I also have a health & wellness website which I'm currently building: www.youandimprovedcoaching.com
I haven't posted the health & wellness section of the site yet, but will be doing so gradually over the course of July and plan to have more health & wellness info available for people there than I do on my blog so check it out and send it along.
As far as an occasional diet coke, I would say while I'm at the point I rarely drink soda, it has taken me 17 years to also get there :) I think you have to live in moderation - choose a few 'poisons' here and there and allow yourself to have them, this is part of having a healthy mindset as well. If you can make the occasional diet soda mean once a week or even once every two weeks of course that is much better than once per day. Figure out a goal like this that is reasonable for you, but allows you to give yourself persmission to have that as a treat on occasion if it's something you enjoy. You don't want ot completely eliminate the few things that are treats to you altogether as you will find in clients this often causes a backlash and then they do the other way and lose it and binge - keep a healthy balance, and in time if you keep knocking the frequency down, I bet you'll evenutally get to the point where I have with soda where I don't really even want it anymore b/c the fact that I don't want those impurities in my body overrides my physical desire for the taste now to the point I don't even crave the taste of soda but on rare occasion. I bet you'll be there in time too - something that will also encourage you to ditch soda as much as possible, it causes calcium depletion/bone loss b/c the carbon compounds in the soda itself seek out calcium to attach to in the body once you ingest them in order ot become a whole molecule again (sorry, this kind of gets into the chemistry of nutrition, but it's necessary to explain) so it finds that calcium often in your bones and detracts from your bone mass. Over time ingesting soda on a frequent basis can lead to osteoporosis - a little nutri fun fact for you that many don't realize...
Should you ever have any questions don't hesitate to email me -
In health,
Heather
Believe it or not, I quit "cold turkey" and discovered stevia shortly thereafter. Stevia rocks! I threw away everything in my house that was "Made with Nutrasweet" too. That was fun :)
Here's an article that I wrote about stevia sweetener.
Thank you again for communicating this information!
In health, Heather