282010 Sat Dec 24 12:18:36 -0800 2005 25 31 Home Cooking 0 1501760 Two days befor Christmas and my wife shows up with 2 lbs of cream cheese and a giant bag of splenda, announces that she's going low carb, and demands cheesecake. I tell her that maybe her timing is off but ok. While the cheesecake is baking, I make hot chocolate from the stuff. She takes one sip and dumps it down the drain, my daughter takes a sip from hers and it ends up in the same place. Cheesecake comes out and looks great. We let it cool and dig in. Yuch, what is that stuff. Tastes like industrial waste. The aftertaste just will not go away. This stuff is evil. Both the cheesecake and the remainder of the giant sack went straight to the trash. Bummer. Sat Dec 24 12:18:36 -0800 2005 0 chileheadmike 1 1501769 Thank you for your review of Splenda-I also bought a big bag of the stuff when I was doing South Beach,but have been afraid to use it-my daughter-who has a degree in Biology-though is currently a MARINE biologist-has been telling me for years that aspartame is POISONOUS!!!One of her professors had said the stuff turns to formaldahyde in your body.I have actually read the same thing at several websites-I think one was WebMD and MSNHealth.Several of my daughter's freinds' mothers have actually developed brain tumors-I'm sure no one can pinpoint the exact cause,but they were heavy diet soda drinkers and my daughter says that it probably IS related.Who can say for sure?But if the stuff is so dangerous,why doesnt the FDA take it off the market?Anyway, I am curtailing my use of it-I have been addicted to Diet Pepsi for years,I have cut way back (how much poison is acceptable to put into your body??)and now when I get a craving for fizzy stuff,I use part real fruit juice and part flavored seltzer.Poland Springs has a new flavor-Pomegranite.Really good and 0 calories!I have also seen vanilla flavored seltzer-if you mix it with orange juice it tastes like a creamsicle!Just some ideas for a healthier alternative to aspartame or high calorie sodas.I save my calories for stuff I really like-like CHOCOLATE anything! Sat Dec 24 14:36:22 -0800 2005 1501760 0 Marianne 2 1501794 I only tried one discount soda with splenda and didn't like it. My mom loves it however. She is on a strict diet [no more high blood pressure medicine. Yay mom!] and it really has allowed her to broaden her diet. I do drink diet soda with aspartame. My dentist said sugared soda would mean higher bills. I used to drink 64 ounces a day, but now only 8. Some people report a bad reaction to aspartame; some people get headaches from MSG. Other foods give people heartburn. I doubt the claim of brain tumors. That could just as plausibly be from cell phones or microwaves or that our environment is so dirty or just being unlucky in the genetic crapshoot. It has also been reported that a soda left too long on the shelf will turn bad-tasting. But aspartame isn't going to remain in your body to do much in the way of chemical reactions. Sat Dec 24 19:45:57 -0800 2005 1501769 0 semmel 3 1501795 From what I understand, Splenda is made of sucralose, which is made up of 2 molecules of sucrose (sugar) and three molecules of chlorine. It's NOT aspartame, but chlorine doesn't sound like a great improvement. So many folks are addicted to diet soda and drink numerous cans of it a day - I see it at work. The fridge is full of diet sodas of all kinds. My husband is trying to cut down from the 5+ cans a aday he drank. Sat Dec 24 19:51:45 -0800 2005 1501794 0 oakjoan 4 1501798 Not a spelda cheerleader, but really, perhaps we should fear table salt because it has an atom of chlorine in its molecular structure... and god forbid, it ionizes in the WATER!!!! Free chlorine molecules, floating around in water. Sat Dec 24 20:13:13 -0800 2005 1501795 0 Curtis 5 1501902 Sigh - there are numerous posts in the past on this issue with many studies quoted. A molecule of chlorine in salt is different than a chlorinated sugar - it changes the molecular structure of sugar and yet is still called 'sugar' by the Splenda people. The sugar companies don't 'make that up' as was mentioned above. There are tons of reports out there about Splenda (NOT put out or funded by the sugar manufacturers) but people will eat whatever their quick diet fix is - whether it's good for them or not - rather than simply cutting down on natural sugars if that's what they need to do. Makes me crazy that it's taste that will turn people off rather than what the stuff will do to your body (sucralose, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup). If diabetes is the problem there are clear and proven methods of eating foods and even sugars and combining those sugars with something that takes a long time to process (protein and fiber) that will keep your sugar low. Unfortunately a lot of people would rather put something quentionable like sucralose in their bodies and make no other changes to their diet than have to go a more whole foods/grains route. Ah well, whatcha gonna do? Mon Dec 26 10:03:15 -0800 2005 1501798 0 krissywats 6 1501979 I basically agree with krissywats, but I wanted to add my *sigh* at the appallingly low level of scientific literacy of the American public. I cringe everytime I see people falling for the rhetoric used by proponents or opponants of a food additive because they don't understand basic (high-school level) chemistry. Chlorine is an element. Although there are 100+ elements, most chemical compounds are made up of a fairly small number of these elements put together in various ways; a chemical's properties depend not only on what atoms are in it and how many, but also how they're hooked together. There are very few elements that are intrinsically or uniformly harmful to you -- it usually depends on how they've been combined with other elements, and how those compounds (molecules) then break down in your body. As a very simple example, take hydrogen and oxygen. Neither is harmful on its own; combined in their most common form (H2O: water) we can't live without it. But if you add another atom of oxygen (another element we can't live without), you get H2O2 (otherwise known as Hydrogen Peroxide), which you definitely wouldn't want to drink! In other words, the fact that Splenda (or any other food) contains chlorine is not what makes it potentially unhealthy -- as another poster pointed out, salt contains chlorine so almost everything we eat contains at least a small amount. What makes Splenda (or any other lab-synthesized food additive) potentially harmful is the way that the chlorine has been introduced into a naturally occuring molecule our bodies are adapted to metabolize and used to convert that natural molecule into one our bodies don't know how to process. Mon Dec 26 16:51:16 -0800 2005 1501902 0 Ruth Lafler 7 1502073 Thanks for that. have you ever seen the show Penn and Teller did where they walked around an environmental convention and got people to sign a petition to ban "Dihydrogen Oxide" in our drinking water? It was pretty funny. Tue Dec 27 12:44:05 -0800 2005 1501979 0 danna 8 1502098 Someone did a whole science project called "How Gullible Are We?" in which he presented the dangers of DHMO (dihydrogen monoxide, or H20) to his class. According to snopes.com, somone also almost got the city council in a city in California to ban containers containing DHMO from city-events. As put so well on snopes: "[T]his example does aptly demonstrate the kind of fallacious reasoning that's thrust at us every day under the guise of "important information": how with a little effort, even the most innocuous of substances can be made to sound like a dangerous threat to human life." Link: http://snopes.com/toxins/dhmo.htm Tue Dec 27 14:53:00 -0800 2005 1502073 0 Ruth Lafler 7 1502080 Danke! You said that in a much clearer and straight forward fashion than I did. Tue Dec 27 13:56:11 -0800 2005 1501979 0 krissywats 3 1501803 Diet sodas left on the shelf too long will taste bad because the amino acids that give the sweet flavor eventually break down, meaning all of a sudden it isn't sweet at all. Link: http://thecosmicjester.blogspot.com Sat Dec 24 20:59:25 -0800 2005 1501794 0 JK Grence (the Cosmic Jester) 3 1501840 Most sodas are now made with Splenda not aspartame (Equal) becuase of the shelf-life reason. Splenda does not lose it's sweetness with time or when exposed to heat as aspartame (Equal) will. Splenda is sugar but with 1 molecule removed. Sun Dec 25 13:54:33 -0800 2005 1501794 0 MZG 2 1501805 You DO realize that Splenda does NOT containe aspartame, do you not? Sat Dec 24 21:02:09 -0800 2005 1501769 0 statman 1 1501772 I don't care what the bag says, with Splenda you have to cut the amount of sugar called for ina recipe back by 1/3 to 1/2 and taste. I made a pumpkin cheese cake with it last year and people were begging for more and I made a nut and butter crust for it that incorporated a bit of Splenda in it too. The stuff is too sweet and when you use it measure for measure you will ruin what you are making and will get that nasty after taste too. As for the hysteria about what that stuff does in your body? I think the sugar companies made that stuff up. Sat Dec 24 14:47:14 -0800 2005 1501760 0 Candy 2 1501775 I should have mentioned that i used the recipe on the bag. Sat Dec 24 14:56:03 -0800 2005 1501772 0 chileheadmike 3 1501779 Now you know. Can you retrieve it? That stuff is really expensive. Sat Dec 24 16:04:30 -0800 2005 1501775 0 Candy 4 1501780 I have no intention of retrieving it Sat Dec 24 16:26:32 -0800 2005 1501779 0 chileheadmike 5 1501793 I use it occasionally for baking and always use less than called for. HOWEVER...YOU CAN NEVER EVER EVER get rid of the aftertaste. It's not true that using less will take care of it. It's awful, and the reason I can't stand diet soda. Stays with you for a long time. That said, Splenda is better than the other fake sugars. What I have been doing for my husband (who has adult onset diabetes) is to make crisps and other desserts using no sugar at all. He can then sprinkle Splenda on top. He doesn't mind the taste. Sat Dec 24 19:45:10 -0800 2005 1501780 0 oakjoan 2 1501777 My mom has diabetes and uses Splenda for most everything says the same thing - cut the quantity at least by a third. It is much sweeter than sugar, I can't say I like using it myself, but she's a very able cook and can make most things work with it. Everyone knows this is a Johnson & Johnson product, right? Sat Dec 24 15:47:21 -0800 2005 1501772 0 Larry 1 1501813 And it's expensive too. I bought some last week and tried it in my tea. Made my Constant Comment taste like soapy water. Sat Dec 24 23:12:06 -0800 2005 1501760 0 N Tocus 1 1501832 OK, I realize I'm probably in the minority here, but I like splenda! It's great to bake with, tastes fine, and has no aftertaste at all! I made a cheesecake with it yesterday and it turned out great. Even my husband, who hates all artificial sweeteners, thought it was good and didn't have any aftertaste. Also, unlike what other posters have said, I find splenda to be slightly less sweet than the equivalent amount of sugar, so I use a little bit more. Just goes to show you that there's no right answer for everyone... Sun Dec 25 12:46:21 -0800 2005 1501760 0 Michelle 2 1501838 I'm with you Splenda is great. If I have a complaint it's that they didn't give it the same packing consistency as sugar. As a result the bags of Splenda are more densely packed than the boxed Splenda. So unless you weigh it there can be quite a difference in the degree of sweetness in a teaspoon. This may account for the difference of opinion of its sweetness compared to sugar. Sun Dec 25 13:14:05 -0800 2005 1501832 0 Tom 3 1501860 I think the boxed Splenda is "bulked" with a filler to make the quantity used in baking, etc close to sugar. The packets are primarily for coffee and tea, and definitely sweeter. I've had no trouble with either type of Splenda, but the other stuff gives me a reaction like MSG. One use I have for the packets is to add to brandy with orange extract. A bit cheaper than Grand Marnier. Sun Dec 25 17:01:54 -0800 2005 1501838 0 Jim H. 1 1501891 People seem to have wildly different reactions to Splenda in terms of whether they experience an aftertaste, as can be seen from previous posts. It'd be great to be one of those people for whom it just tastes sweet and has no aftertaste, but some of us aren't. I and my co-hound, like chileheadmike and his family, find Splenda has an unpleasant flavor and an awful, lingering aftertaste. I'd prefer to simply cut back on things made with sugar than consume splenda (or other artificial sweeteners, which present the same problems to me). Mon Dec 26 03:32:52 -0800 2005 1501760 0 Caitlin McGrath 2 1502020 You are absolutely correct. Some people can't taste the difference. Others can, and I am one of them. Even a half-Splenda half-sugar sub makes me gag. Meanwhile, my BF is slurping down diet soda by the gallon. Mon Dec 26 23:16:16 -0800 2005 1501891 0 Snackish 1 2277759 Funny that I should read this post. I just made my Ricotta Cheese Cake with Splenda today. I am on a low carb diet, just for a couple weeks to fit in my Bathing suit for a tropical trip. I have to say, you can't beat the stuff when you are trying to watch your weight. I have read the sites that say the stuff is poison...I'm still living and I don't have any health problems. Sigh.... Fri Feb 09 17:16:00 -0800 2007 1501760 46549 Parrot