# Splenda: Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar...How? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940 "2007-03-21T23:26:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/1 "2007-03-21T23:26:39Z")
Splenda - Anyone who uses it in their coffee or bakes with it knows it does in fact taste like sugar…Not exactly like it but close enough. My question is: How does one make Splenda from sugar itself? Is it a chemical process? What’s the difference from it an Equal. I know there is no Saccarin (sp?) in splenda. What’s the dope on this? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/2 "2007-03-21T23:31:51Z")
It’s just sucrose (table sugar) where three of the hydroxyl groups are replace with chlorine atoms. Splenda is known under the generic name [sucralose](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose). ---
**Author:** ![Strain\_of\_Thought](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@Strain\_of\_Thought](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strain_of_Thought)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/3 "2007-03-21T23:41:24Z")
Wait, wait, splenda is a chlorocarbon? Like in old ozone-destroying aeresol sprays? How is that not poisonous? ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/4 "2007-03-21T23:45:00Z")
Sucralose isn’t poisonous because the body doesn’t break it down or absorb it. ---
**Author:** ![Mikemike2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikemike2/32/305_2.png) [@Mikemike2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikemike2)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/5 "2007-03-21T23:47:13Z")
The Wikpedia article on [Splenda](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose). So, yes it is created from a chemical reaction that replaces some regular atoms with chlorine ones. It is about 600 times sweeter than sugar, but is cut with other indgrediants to bring it back to about the same sweetness as sugar by volume. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/6 "2007-03-22T00:21:31Z")
From my point of view the main benefit of sucralose is that it is thermally stable and you can bake with it without losing the sweetness. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/7 "2007-03-22T00:47:28Z")
[Here’s](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46055-2005Apr12.html) some info: > [@](#): > > Nobody questions whether Tate & Lyle’s chemists actually do make sucralose from cane sugar, or sucrose. All McNeil will say about how they do that is to describe “a patented, multi-step process that selectively replaces three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule with three chlorine atoms.” In more specific chemical terms: Eight of the sucrose molecule’s 22 hydrogen atoms are paired with oxygen atoms as so-called hydroxyl groups, OH. Tate & Lyle’s chemists replace three of those eight hydroxyl groups with chlorine atoms. (My guess is they do it by treating sucrose with hydrogen chloride.) > > But isn’t chlorine harmful to humans and animals and damaging to the environment? > > In some forms, yes. For example, most common insecticides contain chlorine atoms in their molecules. And polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), an industrial byproduct, are among the most persistent environmental pollutants. But in other compounds, such as sodium chloride (table salt), the chlorine is not only harmless but essential to our health. > > The Sugar Association’s Web site makes the calculatedly alarming statement that when eating Splenda, consumers are “actually eating chlorine.” Well, la-de-da. So are the consumers who are “actually eating” salt. My point is that chlorine is a common and versatile element that appears in hundreds of compounds with hundreds of different properties – good, bad and indifferent. > > The Weapons > > So here is the weapon I offer to the Splenda forces: The Sugar Association’s fright tactic against “eating chlorine” is misleading and disingenuous. And my chemical weapon for the Equal, NutraSweet and Sugar Association forces: Splenda’s slogan, “made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar,” is also misleading and disingenuous. > > The lawyers may argue until they’re blue in the face about whether Splenda really tastes like sugar, and I’m sure that a witness could be found to testify that it tastes like salt. But what does “tastes like” mean, anyway? Does it mean “tastes exactly like” or “tastes similar to”? > > The Chemistry > > But taste is not the point. To a chemist, it’s the word “so” in the slogan. It implies that the taste of sucrose survives its chemical transformation into sucralose. But the implication that Splenda tastes like sugar because it was made from sugar flies in the face of what we know about chemical change: that changing any part of a molecule must invariably change its properties. > > I can take some sugar into the laboratory, modify it chemically and wind up with something that tastes like almost anything you’d want – or wouldn’t want. For example, with nothing but a little sulfuric acid, I can turn sucrose into a steaming, seething, black mass that would dissolve your teeth if you tried to eat it. > > So while I will swallow Splenda itself without concern (the Food and Drug Administration’s imprimatur is good enough for me), I cannot swallow its slogan. I believe it is indeed misleading, just as alleged by the anti-Splenda forces. And while I’m at it, because all sugars (sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, etc.) have chemical names ending in -ose, naming the product sucralose is, again, disingenuous. Sweet it is, but a sugar it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/8 "2007-03-22T00:50:16Z")
So you’re saying that if my morning coffee tastes like pool water, it’s MY fault? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/9 "2007-03-22T01:00:47Z")
[QUOTE=Strain of Thought] Wait, wait, splenda is a chlorocarbon? Like in old ozone-destroying aeresol sprays? How is that not poisonous? [/QUOTE] First off, those were pretty much all chlorofluorocarbons, not just chlorinated organic molecules. These are generally highly volatile, highly substituted organic compounds (basically, all hydrogens have been replaced by F or Cl.) Freon-11, for instance, is CFCl3. Most haloalkanes aren’t that pleasant–I use dichloromethane and chloroform all the time as solvents, and very occasionally carbon tetrachloride and dichloroethane. They have all potential health effects and are more of a pain to dispose of (luckily, I just dump the stuff in the right bucket, the school takes care of the disposal end.) Just because something is halogenated, however, doesn’t mean it’s automatically unsafe. Sucralose is an example. [4’-Deoxy-4’-iododoxorubicin](http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=307408&blobtype=pdf) (warning: PDF) is an example that’s in clinical trials as an anti-cancer drug–that’s an I at the R’ position. A lot of other drugs use at least one halogen in the modification of natural products. (Sorry, I can’t come up with a lot of examples as most hits on Google aren’t open PDFs.) Polymers like polyvinylchloride are examples. Sorry, the idea that all chemicals are dangerous or that all halogenated chemicals are dangerous or so on really gets at me. (As I’ve said in the past, us smartass organic chemists, when seeing something that claims it is “chemical-free” starts wondering or asking what’s actually in there if the person making the claim is present. Some kind of fancy hologram, maybe?) ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/10 "2007-03-22T01:27:32Z")
Okee Dokee - so, is regular sugar better for me? non flamable? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/11 "2007-03-22T01:37:26Z")
[QUOTE=asterion] Sorry, the idea that all chemicals are dangerous or that all halogenated chemicals are dangerous or so on really gets at me. (As I’ve said in the past, us smartass organic chemists, when seeing something that claims it is “chemical-free” starts wondering or asking what’s actually in there if the person making the claim is present. Some kind of fancy hologram, maybe?) [/QUOTE] Absolutely; annoys me too. In fact, while I was looking for a link or two about sucralose, I came across [this site](http://www.tuberose.com/Sucralose.html) which contains this hilariously idiotic line: > [@](#): > > **Splenda is marketed as a “healthful” and “natural” product since it is derived from sugar. However, its chemical structure is very different from that of sugar and sucralose is actually a chemical substance.** Well, no fucking shit, Einstein. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/12 "2007-03-22T01:38:12Z")
[QUOTE=Phlosphr] Okee Dokee - so, is regular sugar better for me? non flamable? [/QUOTE] Bad for your teeth and rediculously high in empty calories. If you drink regular soda or commercial drinks in general, you’re probably getting way to much sugar, but the sugar industry sure likes it. Sugar can burn, but it’ll melt first making a lovely hard surface on the top of creme brule. On Edit: So sugar _isn’t_ a chemical substance? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/13 "2007-03-22T02:38:07Z")
[QUOTE=garygnu] On Edit: So sugar _isn’t_ a chemical substance? :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] Of course it isn’t, silly…it comes from plants, so it’s _natural_! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/14 "2007-03-22T02:40:29Z")
[QUOTE=Jeep’s Phoenix] Of course it isn’t, silly…it comes from plants, so it’s _natural_! 😉 [/QUOTE] Just like cyanide. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/15 "2007-03-22T03:09:12Z")
[QUOTE=garygnu] Bad for your teeth and rediculously high in empty calories. If you drink regular soda or commercial drinks in general, you’re probably getting way to much sugar, but the sugar industry sure likes it. Sugar can burn, but it’ll melt first making a lovely hard surface on the top of creme brule. [/QUOTE] I don’t mind “empty” calories now and then - have to be careful. But for my money, I want SUGAR, not corn syrup, and that’s what is used in lieu of sugar in virtually all soda/softdrinks/pop, sugar being considered too expensive. Yick. Interestingly with the price of corn higher recently, the soft drink makers are looking elsewhere yet again. So the sugar industry probably cares very little how many Cokes anyone drinks. Personally I really dislike Ersatz food, it has its place but not in my diet. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/16 "2007-03-22T03:52:02Z")
Splenda has a huge place in my diet. I dislike empty calories. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/17 "2007-03-22T12:36:28Z")
So I wake up this morning reread what people have written and I still wonder…Is splenda good for you even though it tis chemically altered with some sort of chlorine? ---
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/18 "2007-03-22T13:15:29Z")
Yes it’s fine. You know how you’re supposed to make drinking water safe in emergencies by adding chlorine bleach? That’s because the chlorine is not going to kill you and is safe in small quantities. ---
**Author:** ![Solfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/19 "2007-03-22T13:16:23Z")
[QUOTE=Phlosphr] So I wake up this morning reread what people have written and I still wonder…Is splenda good for you even though it tis chemically altered with some sort of chlorine? [/QUOTE] To answer your question, you’d have to define what is meant by “good for you.” Is it good to ingest less sugar? Most likely. American diets are pretty stuffed with refined sugar. Is sugar inherently bad? Eh. All things in moderation, unless you’ve got other health considerations like diabetes. I think what you’re really asking is is Splenda bad. Many studies have been done to prove the safety of the sweetener, and they all appear to point to the fact that it is not harmful. AFAIK it passes through the digestive system undisturbed because it is a stable molecule that is unrecognized by the standard digestion process. Could we find out 20 yrs from now that people who eat Splenda grow a third arm? Possibly. But that’s no more likely than finding out any of the other “unnatural” substances in our food chain are harmful - things like colors, stabilizers, package coatings, etc. “Chemicals” are already all through our food chain. We just don’t like to think about it until we want Twinkies that don’t turn rancid before we bring them home from the grocery store. Some of the “chemicals” in food that _are_ suspected to be harmful, like acrylamide in fried foods, are there “naturally” (assuming you believe frying food is natural). It doesn’t have to be made in a reactor to be dangerous. Like everything in life, it’s a risk/benefit balance. Are you willing to take the (assumed small due to much scientific testing) risk of eating Splenda as a means of getting your sweets without the calories? If you’re not comfortable with artifical sweeteners, you could eat sugar. Or not eat sweet foods. And on a related note regarding synthesis, I do know Splenda can be made with phosgene. I don’t know that this is the current production route. Splenda! It’s made from phosgene so it tastes like sugar! ---
**Author:** ![Mycroft\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/898d66/32.png) [@Mycroft\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mycroft_H)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2007, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940/20 "2007-03-22T13:30:51Z")
[QUOTE=Jeep’s Phoenix] Of course it isn’t, silly…it comes from plants, so it’s _natural_! 😉 [/QUOTE] I don’t trust natural stuff. People are always dying of natural causes. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/splenda-made-from-sugar-so-it-tastes-like-sugar-how/396940.md?page=2)