# "Splenda is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar" Is Splenda "lying with words"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 5, 2004, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189 "2004-12-05T07:43:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hlanelee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@hlanelee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hlanelee)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/21 "2004-12-05T16:19:11Z")
Look at my spelling (example of a true QC professional :smack: ) ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/22 "2004-12-05T16:28:08Z")
Sucralose is a derivative of sucrose, end of story. It would be nuts to try to synthesize that molecule from scratch when there’s loads of perfectly good sucrose lying around ready to be halogenated. I assume the gotcha here is to claim “made from” is not synonymous with “synthesized from”, but rather “composed of”. It’s bullshit, and they have no hope of winning; and I doubt winning is the object. Rather, it’s a calculated effor to spread FUD, based on a projection that it will be less expensive to lose a suit than allow unchecked erosion of market share. ---
**Author:** ![SavageNarce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@SavageNarce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SavageNarce)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/23 "2004-12-05T16:29:05Z")
So maybe we can come up with a new slogan for Splenda: “Made from chlorinated sucrose in a five-step process that replaces three of the hydroxyl (OH) groups with chloro groups (Cl), so it tastes more like sugar than wood does.” Nope, that’s just not grabbing me… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Donovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ea666f/32.png) [@Donovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donovan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/24 "2004-12-05T16:30:13Z")
> [@scotandrsn](#): > > I personally find that Splenda tastes EXACTLY like refined sugar. > > I think the jury might still be out on Splenda’s side effects, but aspartame (aka Nutra-Sweet aka Equal) has had more complaints about bad reactions to the FDA than all other sweeteners. So if you get more natural flavor and not so much brain cancer, it’s not hard to see why the folks at Equal have their panties in a bunch. I recall reading a while back that Saccharine is not as bad as most people think (you have to eat like 10 pounds a day to get cancer), and that if aspertame (nutrisweet) had gone through all of the testing that saccarine did, it would be considered dangeous too; aspertame was railroaded through FDA tests. This same source claimed that Apsertame is more dangerous than saccharine. Since I can’t remember the source, I’m not saying I wasn’t reading some corporate propaganda, but I’m generally able to see propaganda for what is is, and this vague recollection doesn’t include my mental “oh, yeah, well since you make the stuff of course you’ll say that” mental disclaimer. Any truth to that, or has anyone else heard anything similar? I googled for it, and most sites seem to say that as long as you are not one of the few with a rare metabolic condition, you should be OK eating aspertame. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/25 "2004-12-05T16:32:50Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > Uh, I think you’re thinking of rum there, not vodka. > > Vodka is made with potatoes, so it tastes like potatoes. Not most vodka. Some of the premium vodkas are, but some are made from other grains. And the stuff us poor college students buy is made from neutral spirits, and who the hell knows where they came from? But only a small minority of the vodka on the market is made from potatoes. Apparently some people have different reactions to Splenda than others. I personally have only tried the stuff in iced coffee, but not only does it dissolve more easily than sugar, it tastes every bit as good. But clearly some folks can detect an enormous taste difference. I wonder if there’s something about the receptors on some peoples’ tongues that makes us unable to distinguish between them. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/26 "2004-12-05T16:39:35Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Apparently some people have different reactions to Splenda than others. I personally have only tried the stuff in iced coffee, but not only does it dissolve more easily than sugar, it tastes every bit as good. But clearly some folks can detect an enormous taste difference. I wonder if there’s something about the receptors on some peoples’ tongues that makes us unable to distinguish between them. Well…I didn’t want to say that you lack taste, but… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/27 "2004-12-05T16:51:45Z")
> [@LivingInThePast](#): > > The deal is that Splenda _weighs_ less than the same volume of sugar. It’s like saying “1 cup of feathers = 1 cup of sugar”. The feathers take up the same space, but weigh a lot less. The important thing about teaspoons and cups is that you don’t weigh them. If you used some of the older recipes that asked you to weigh things (people used to have kitchen scales for just that purpose), Splenda wouldn’t substitute ounce-for-ounce for sugar. Fortunately for Splenda, hardly anyone weighs things in the course of typical cooking these days. Oh yes. \ Thanks to you and **chaoticdonkey** for pointing that out. I should have realized, especially since Splenda comes out of the box in feathery snowflake-style bits with a lot of space between them, rather than densely-packed grains like sugar. In fact, the Usage Guide on the side of the box even includes information for those older weighing recipes, but I only looked at the top of it. \*\*USAGE GUIDE: 1 tablespoon sugar = 1 tablespoon Splenda 1 cup sugar = 1 cup Splenda 50g sugar = 4 tablespoon Splenda 100g sugar = 1/2 cup Splenda 200g sugar = 1 cup Splenda\*\* ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/28 "2004-12-05T17:20:46Z")
> [@Donovan](#): > > I recall reading a while back that Saccharine is not as bad as most people think (you have to eat like 10 pounds a day to get cancer), and that if aspertame (nutrisweet) had gone through all of the testing that saccarine did, it would be considered dangeous too; aspertame was railroaded through FDA tests. This same source claimed that Apsertame is more dangerous than saccharine. Since I can’t remember the source, I’m not saying I wasn’t reading some corporate propaganda, but I’m generally able to see propaganda for what is is, and this vague recollection doesn’t include my mental “oh, yeah, well since you make the stuff of course you’ll say that” mental disclaimer. Any truth to that, or has anyone else heard anything similar? I googled for it, and most sites seem to say that as long as you are not one of the few with a rare metabolic condition, you should be OK eating aspertame. I think the tinfoil hatters believe aspartame kills you by filling your system up with formaldehyde. It’s true that a matabolic derivative of aspartame is formaldehyde (with methanol being an intermediary); but you’d be surprised at how many normal dietary substances that’s also true of (or we wouldn’t make the enzymes to break it down). The body has enough aldehyde dehydregenase such that it can easily handle the load of formaldehyde you get from ingesting aspartame. Aspartame is an extrememly potent sweetener; the amounts you would have to consume to be in even the remotest danger of formaldehyde/formate poisoning would seem rather insane to anybody not wanting bucketfulls of nauseating sweetness. The other products of aspartame metabolism are aspartate and phenylalanine, found in several-fold smaller amounts than one encouters from consuming high protein foods, like milk, in perfectly normal portions. The safety of aspartame has been researched to death, and no one has found that, consumed in anything less than absurdly enormous amounts, there are any demonstrable health risks due to aspartame consumption. Even when broken down by heat, the amount of methanol found in, say, a bottle of diet coke, is far less than the body can handle safely. Unless you’ve got phenylketoneuria, there’s nothing wrong with aspartame. And if you’ve got PKU, virtually all natural protein is ultmately deadly, so that’s hardly a reason for healthy people to be concerned. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/29 "2004-12-05T23:48:09Z")
Well, it’s obvious the reason they use “made from sugar so it tastes like sugar” is because “made from dextrose, maltodextrin and 4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha, D-Galactopyranosyl-1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta and D-fructofuranoside so it tastes like dextrose, maltodextrin and 4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha, D-Galactopyranosyl-1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta and D-fructofuranoside” wouldn’t fit in a commercial. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/30 "2004-12-06T00:14:48Z")
QUOTE from OP “McNeil Nutritionals spokeswoman **Monica Neufang** said the lawsuit has no merit.” Any relation to Dracula? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/31 "2004-12-06T00:41:12Z")
> [@spingears](#): > > QUOTE from OP > “McNeil Nutritionals spokeswoman **Monica Neufang** said the lawsuit has no merit.” > Any relation to Dracula? It was a Neufangled project! Stick with the tried and true sugar, I always say! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/32 "2004-12-06T04:41:06Z")
> [@mobo85](#): > > Well, it’s obvious the reason they use “made from sugar so it tastes like sugar” is because “made from dextrose, maltodextrin and 4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha, D-Galactopyranosyl-1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta and D-fructofuranoside so it tastes like dextrose, maltodextrin and 4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha, D-Galactopyranosyl-1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta and D-fructofuranoside” wouldn’t fit in a commercial. Maybe not, but I would definitely buy the product then. (I already do use Splenda, but I’m a sucker for geekiness like that.) ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/33 "2004-12-06T11:18:49Z")
No, it’s not “made from dextrose, maltodextrin and 4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha, D-Galactopyranosyl-1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta and D-fructofuranoside” - itt **is** dextrose, maltodextrin and 4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha, D-Galactopyranosyl-1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta,D-fructofuranoside. That is what it is now; it was _made from_ sugar, or, more to the point, the 4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha, D-Galactopyranosyl-1,6-dichloro-1,6-dideoxy-beta,D-fructofuranoside was made from sugar. And forget the “scary sounding” chemical name - if you get rid of the “chloro” parts of that name you get alpha-D-glucopyranosyl-beta-D-fructofuranoside, which is — guess what — sugar! You can make anything sound scary with systematic chemical names. How about some 5-(1,2-dihydroxyethyl)-3,4-dihydroxy-5H-furan-2-one with your orange juice? That’s vitamin C to you. And I am very sceptical about this: > [@WhyNot](#): > > All I know is when I eat the crap I feel like I’ve swallowed a swimming pool, and I belch chlorine for hours. Absolute nonsense, unless you have truly unique body chemistry. The majority of sucralose passes completely unaltered through the body. A small amount is metabolised into dichlorofructose, which is then excreted. There is no free chlorine going to be liberated in your body. Not a single molecule. Nada. Zip. Purely psychosomatic, since you know what it’s made of, I suspect. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/34 "2004-12-06T13:51:39Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Absolute nonsense, unless you have truly unique body chemistry. The majority of sucralose passes completely unaltered through the body. A small amount is metabolised into dichlorofructose, which is then excreted. There is no free chlorine going to be liberated in your body. Not a single molecule. Nada. Zip. Purely psychosomatic, since you know what it’s made of, I suspect. You know, I thought the very same thing, when I was in the middle of a rather tinfoil-hatty nutrition class. So the class set up a double-blind placebo controlled study for me. (We were studying study design at the time, so I became the project for the semester!) The “study” lasted for 12 weeeks - one food item consumed per night before class. Half the products contained sucralose, half did not. Student A put food in an unlabeled container and kept track of what was what. Student B brought it into another room where I was sitting. I’d consume it, and note any reactions during class. 12 weeks later, I had 6 belchy classes and 6 not, correlated 100% with the sucralose containing products. Other symptoms included a feeling of heaviness, cramping, and I kept smelling bleach. (I didn’t smell like bleach to anyone else, but my own nose detected the odor of bleach.) So then I thought, well, obviously, it’s some other weird thing they use in low-calorie foods, because Daddy says sucralose is safe and he made it, darn it! So we repeated (over the next semester) the same experiment, but this time with home-made stuff (drinks, muffins, etc.) made identically save for a sugar/sucralose switch in the quantities suggested on the package. Same results. 7 for 7 I identified the sucralose via body symptoms. Well, it made for a good class project, but I refused to be the guinea pig any longer. I decided sucralose isn’t for me, whatever Daddy says. I’m not going to become a crusader, because you’re absolutely right in what the studies reveal - less than 10% of sucralose is unaccounted for in the urine. For most people, it should pose no problems whatsoever. It just means I have to check labels incredibly closely, as even the tiniest bit of the stuff makes me belchy. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/35 "2004-12-06T14:27:15Z")
I believe that the Chlorine atoms won’t be liberated from the sucralose molecule, but is it possible that there are other molecules in there which are by-products of the synthesis process, and these would have a chlorine taste? Or maybe sucralose just fires up the same taste receptors that chlorine-containing products do for WhyNot. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/36 "2004-12-06T14:33:41Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > I believe that the Chlorine atoms won’t be liberated from the sucralose molecule, but is it possible that there are other molecules in there which are by-products of the synthesis process, and these would have a chlorine taste? Or maybe sucralose just fires up the same taste receptors that chlorine-containing products do for WhyNot. I think it’s just 'cause WhyNot’s a freak of nature! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/37 "2004-12-06T17:31:31Z")
Sugar? Chlorine? Funky taste? “Made from semen so it tastes like semen!” ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/38 "2004-12-06T18:31:10Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > You know, I thought the very same thing, when I was in the middle of a rather tinfoil-hatty nutrition class. So the class set up a double-blind placebo controlled study for me. (We were studying study design at the time, so I became the project for the semester!) The “study” lasted for 12 weeeks - one food item consumed per night before class. Half the products contained sucralose, half did not. Student A put food in an unlabeled container and kept track of what was what. Student B brought it into another room where I was sitting. I’d consume it, and note any reactions during class. > > 12 weeks later, I had 6 belchy classes and 6 not, correlated 100% with the sucralose containing products. Other symptoms included a feeling of heaviness, cramping, and I kept smelling bleach. (I didn’t smell like bleach to anyone else, but my own nose detected the odor of bleach.) > > So then I thought, well, obviously, it’s some other weird thing they use in low-calorie foods, because Daddy says sucralose is safe and he made it, darn it! So we repeated (over the next semester) the same experiment, but this time with home-made stuff (drinks, muffins, etc.) made identically save for a sugar/sucralose switch in the quantities suggested on the package. Same results. 7 for 7 I identified the sucralose via body symptoms. > > Well, it made for a good class project, but I refused to be the guinea pig any longer. I decided sucralose isn’t for me, whatever Daddy says. I’m not going to become a crusader, because you’re absolutely right in what the studies reveal - less than 10% of sucralose is unaccounted for in the urine. For most people, it should pose no problems whatsoever. It just means I have to check labels incredibly closely, as even the tiniest bit of the stuff makes me belchy. What foods are you eating that contain Splenda? Here’s the thing: In a lot of the candies, ice creams, low-carb energy bars, etc. that are formulated with splenda, there’s often also a fair amount of sugar alcohols. Now these sugar alcohols have wonderful humectant properties, and are poorly absorbed in the colon, making them nice sugar substitutes that preserve the flavor and texture of sugary foods without causing a spike in insulin. Thing is, this high humectancy coupled with low absorbancy makes sugar alcohols rather effective laxatives in sufficient quantities (which isn’t all that much…trust me). I don’t know about belching, but laxatives can give people cramps and wicked gas (are bloating and “heavyness” synonymous at all?). I’ve eaten some low-carb ice cream that gave me…well, we won’t go into it, but suffice to say it wasn’t all that pleasant. I’m almost 100% sure my troubles were caused by all xylitol, sorbitol, or whatever else it was that was in there. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/39 "2004-12-06T18:45:42Z")
What I find terribly ironic is that when Nutrasweet first came out 20 years ago (ergh, I’m _that_ old), the company made a huge point of saying that it was derived from substances found in “bananas and milk,” although I don’t think they were boiling down either of the above in the manufacturing process. When Nutrasweet’s patent expired a few years back, several articles reported food processors were just itching to move to a generic, or to another product altogether - apparently, when Nutrasweet had the artificial-sweetener product pretty much all to itself, the company that made it made itself quite unpleasant. So this controversy has rather a last-gasp quality to it. ---
**Author:** ![duality72](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duality72/32/3910_2.png) [@duality72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duality72)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2004, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189/40 "2004-12-06T19:21:41Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > You can make anything sound scary with systematic chemical names. Don’t listen to him! Ban dihydrogen monoxide now! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-is-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-is-splenda-lying-with-words/278189.md?page=3)