SPLENDA, Stevia, Suclralose, ASPARTAME, Sugar Alcohol... dieter's dream or deadly ingredients?

I used to avoid fake sweeteners like the plague, but then I went through a phase where I consumed food only if it was low cal regardless of ingredients.  The book Skinny Bitch  went into great detail about the negative effects of Aspartame.  But IT'S in EVERYTHING.  Really, it's even in Fiber One Cereal.  Oh, and you know the new LITE chips.. is Olestra bad for you?

What do you think?

Thanks.  Though I'm not entirely convinced of Dr. Mercola's impartiality on the subject given that he's trying to sell an anti-artificial sweeteners book. 

Some of his numbers are kind of scary - until you crunch them.  Don't feed a newborn more than 500 mg/kg sucralose per day or you'll stunt growth.  So, figuring a newborn weighs about 8 pounds (4 kg), don't feed your baby more than 2 grams of sucralose per day.  I certainly hope *nobody* is feeding their babies artificial sweeteners of any kind.  That would be horrible!  By the time the child weighs 50 pounds, that "danger number" would increase to 12 grams of sucralose per day.  Again, what parent would willingly feed their child that much "diet food"?  Kids need real food and exercise to grow up healthy.  For an adult, the daily recommended dose is much lower than the 25+ grams/day this study indicates might stunt growth. 

Sections like the one below also concern me.

Q: The corporate researchers claim that the chlorine atoms are so tightly bound; they create a molecular structure that is exceptionally stable under extreme pH and temperature conditions. Do you agree?

A: They are testing these conditions in lab rats, and these types of corporate studies have forced and ‘selective‘ results, in my opinion. Aspartame research is the proof of this!

Test these chemicals on a child and see how stable it is--but that would be cruel. So, why then do we buy it and give it to our children? I don‘t buy into manufacturers‘ claims when it comes to human beings using ANY man-made chemical. Plus, I have learned over the past 25 years of aspartame research to value independent research above that which is funded by corporations

 The "answer" doesn't answer the original question.  Instead, it panders to fears.  I'm a completely independent scientist with no vested interest in artificial sweeteners or the agricultural industry.  (In fact, I flout it as often as I can.  Go to the local farmer's market.  Just ordered beef from a local farmer whose meat is grass-fed.  Grow my own herbs.  etc.)  But I will absolutely agree that the chlorine atoms in sucralose are tightly bound and aren't going to come "flying off" in little kids - which is what the author implies they will.  Even if they did (which they won't), they'd come off in the form of chloride anions not chlorine atoms.  So, it'd be like the kid had a few more milligrams of salt than they'd intended that day.  Further down in the same article, the Material Safety Data Sheet for chlorine gas is referenced, implying that sucralose could cause the same problems as if a person inhaled chlorine gas.  That's either a blatant lie intending to scare people - or indicative of an author that doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand the difference between salt and chlorine gas.  I actually lean toward the second option, but I don't know which is worse.

It's fine to be cynical.  And it's great to look for independent research.  (One of my co-workers does independent research on oils to see if companies are telling the truth about trans fat content, sat. fat content, etc.  They get kind of annoyed when he catches them in lies.)  But I fail to see how testing on rats is promoting "selective results".  And I fail to see how "look, aspartame is bad" is an automatic indictment of sucralose.  I guess I just wish that the people who go around writing articles complaining that big industry is lying to them would actually do their own studies rather than publishing their pet theories based on bad science.  Or at least, maybe they could take a couple of chemistry and biology courses to learn how some of this stuff works?  The irony is that, looking at his website, there are many things I'd agree with Dr. Mercola on - but here he's showing that it's been a *long* time since his undergrad science courses and he doesn't seem to remember much of them.

Does that mean I think you (or I) should use Splenda?  Not particularly.  I don't think it's evil to have in very small amounts but, personally, I prefer honey.  Or brown sugar.  Or fresh fruit. 

The stevia pages were interesting, though.  I'd like to look into other countries' relationships with stevia as big industry seems to have too much influence on the FDA for me to put a whole lot of stock in what the FDA says.  (I get most of my info. on these topics from research journals rather than government organizations.  And I will say that stevia hasn't come up much in those sources.)

Edited to note that I wish companies would just stop over-sweetening food anyway.  I bought some Fibre One Raisin Bran Crunch cereal because it had more fibre than the Kelloggs one - but the flakes are just so... syrupy?  It's just wrong.  And it feels wasteful to throw away the rest of the box, so every so often I pull it out and have a small bowl.  But why did they need to make bran flakes all over-sugar-y?

Yeah, I'm learning to be wary of artificial sweeteners.  Not any particular one, but all of them in general.  Aspartame, though, breaks down in the body as formaldahyde, which is what cadavers and frogs used to be preserved with (in the last several years, however, there has been a reach to preserve dissecting animals with something else as formaldahyde often causes very strong reactions in people working around it.)  Gross right?  Yeah.  Splenda is chlorinated sugar, which just sounds wrong if you think about it . . .

I haven't tried Stevia but I wouldn't rule it out . . .

I think everyone just needs to be careful.  It was mentioned before, but it bears repeating: our bodies really aren't designed to keep breaking down chemicals.  I think that eventually, that will catch up to us in a not so good way.

Splenda gives cancer.  (I have no idea if that's actually true, but I figure if I tell myself that enough, I'll stay away from it.)