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Sucralose sweetens Fredericksburg-area households. Date published: 3/2/2005 By MARTY MORRISON hen Suzanne Heilman Poe cooks, she keeps three key seasonings by the stove--coarse ground pepper, sea salt and Splenda. "I like a little pinch of sweetening in most everything I make," said Poe, a North Stafford resident whose hobby is cooking. "I use Splenda for everything." Poe is among a growing number of people who are sweetening their foods with sucralose, an artificial sweetener sold under the brand name of Splenda. In just six years, the no-calorie sweetener, advertised under the slogan "made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar," has captured 51 percent of the sugar substitute market, The Washington Post reports. It's also cutting into sugar sales. More than half of its growth has come from previous sugar customers, according to the Splen da.com Web site. The Splenda manufacturer claims that almost 20 million households bought the sugar substitute during 2004. Its familiar yellow packets are increasingly common in restaurants beside sugar, Sweet & Low saccharin and Equal aspartame. Splenda is found in some 4,000 products, including Diet RC Cola and Diet Rite Cola, and will be available in Coca-Cola and Pepsi products this spring. Much of its popularity may lie in the absence of health concerns that have plagued other artificial sweeteners. Although deemed safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, aspartame has been linked to headaches and short-term memory loss, saccharin to cancer in lab animals. Saccharin carries a warning label on the packet. But Splenda is not without controversy. The Sugar Association filed a false advertising lawsuit in December claiming that its slogan is flawed. The Web site truthabout splenda.com disputes the notion that Splenda is natural and is safe to eat. It contends the sweetness comes from a chlorocarbon chemical. The marketing company that represents Splenda has retaliated with a lawsuit charging that the sugar industry has made false statements about the no-calorie sweetener. Sucralose begins as pure cane sugar, then is chemically altered during manufacturing to create a compound that doesn't contain calories, according to Associated Press reports. Stefanie Rekdal, a dietitian and certified diabetes educator with Mary Washington Hospital Diabetes Management Program, said the type of sweetener people use is a matter of preference. Most artificial sweeteners offer a viable alternative for people who are diabetic or who need to cut back on sugar.
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