We have all heard the commercial: “Splenda: it’s made from sugar so it tastes like sugar.” Splenda is a zero calorie sweetener that McNeill Nutritional states tastes just like sugar. How is this possible?
SPLENDA® is the brand name for the ingredient sucralose. It is made through a patented, multi-step process that starts with sugar and converts it to a no calorie, non-carbohydrate sweetener.
The process selectively replaces three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule with three chlorine atoms. Chlorine is present naturally in many of the foods and beverages that we eat and drink every day ranging from lettuce, mushrooms and table salt. The addition of the chlorine atoms converts sucrose to sucralose, which is essentially an inert substance.
The result is an exceptionally stable sweetener that tastes like sugar, but without sugar’s calories. The sweetening ingredient in Splenda is about 600 times sweeter than sugar, which means that your average daily intake would be very small compared to using sugar.
Based on volume, it has no calories, but will my body process it like sugar? Based on the information at www.splenda.com McNeill Nutritional states “After consumption, sucralose passes through the body without being broken down for energy, so it has no calories, and the body does not recognize it as a carbohydrate.”
The majority (about 85%) of consumed sucralose is not absorbed and passes through the gastrointestinal tract unchanged. Approximately 15% of ingested sucralose is passively absorbed, which is related to the fact that sucralose is a very small, very water soluble molecule. Because it is highly water soluble, absorbed sucralose is distributed to essentially all tissues. Sucralose is not lipophilic and does not bioaccumulate. Radiolabel studies show that sucralose is not actively transported across the blood-brain barrier, the placental barrier, or the mammary gland.
With a substance like sucralose, sugar could just become a thing of the past.
Steve Veener is the owner of the http://www.moderndayhealth.com
