Is Splenda Safe? (Sucralose)

[Tombstone]

This is an interesting article that points out some facts and unanswered questions about the safety of Splenda. (An artificial sweetener.)

http://www.wholefoods.com/healthinfo/sucralose.html

Comments?

[anastrophe]

i have little concern for the safety of sucralose. when compared to the damage sugar causes, if there is some minimal risk, it is overwhelmed by sugar's risks.

i take exception to the following two rhetorical turns in their list of reasons against it:

Sucralose is a chlorinated compound. Other classes of chlorinated molecules include pesticides.

true, but classic scare tactics. as was mentioned in the article, salt is a chlorinated molecule. Many fungi generate and disperse chlorinated compounds, which is an important part of the decomposition process necessary for forests to exist. for a slightly less hysterical assessment of chlorinated compounds in nature, see http://www.eurochlor.org/chlorine/sc...stryLiving.htm

There are no long-term (>13 months) human studies of sucralose's effects and no long history of use.

while true, sucralose represents probably the most exhaustively tested and analyzed food compound ever created. that of course doesn't preclude new information being discovered. but it's been in use and on the market for a decade, and nobody has yet described a problem with it. again - balanced against the known horrible damage refined sugars do, it's a no-brainer choice.

[Hawke]

I'm with anastrophe on this one. I like Splenda. I use it. I'm not afraid of it.