Might wanna qualify some of those statements and move the asterisk. Salt is made out of chlorine too, ya know. And afaik splenda's ad campaign just says it's made from sugar, which is undoubtedly true. Of course, a lot of pharmaceuticals are made from oil, but that doesn't really mean anything about whether they're healthy to take unless you believe in vital essences or similar nonsense.

I try to avoid artificial sweeteners myself (aspartame metabolizes to methyl alcohol, after all), but the evidence against them isn't really that overwhelming so far as I know.

"Which has been found to cause Epileptic seizures, migraines and headaches, depression, brain tumors, and autoimmune diseases"

Sure, but it it low carb?

An excellent point, tom. Incidentally, a favorite little fact of mine, many grapefruit juice manufacturers are allowed to include the phrase "natural flavors" on their labels because the taste is refined from a certain insect. Thank you 'Fast Food Nation'

I'm curious about your sources in the asterix section. I've not seen much of that before.

A good list of splenda probs can be found at: http://www.mercola.com/2003/aug/23/splenda.htm

Apparenlty i can't enter the below url because of the word "netfirms" in it, but just place that word where you see the "="

And one about splenda vs. equal: http://creativehealth.=.com/splenda_equal.shtml

Splendid discussion.

Well, I obviously don't have time to go through and check all of the sources from those sites.

I will say however, that as of 1999 or so, when I was writing a paper on the neurotransmitter Aspartate, there was no conclusive evidence that Aspartame was particularly harmful. Also, I'm wary of medical advice from anybody selling anything. Especially 'alternatives' to things against which they preach.

Well, there's only one solution- you, personally, must eat a huge amount of it and report back any ill effects.

Experiment in progress. I drink tons of diet coke (which is approximately 45% aspratame, 45% phosphoric acid, and 10% other natural flavors), and put equal in my coffee.

I've always had ADD, so that probably isn't an effect of the sweeteners.

Splenda is just not common enough to judge.

Data from this experiment may well be confounded by my heavy consumption of alcohol, caffeine, and whatever it is that makes cheap Chinese take-out so magically delicious (MSG).

This is just another hoax kids, but this one is being brought to you buy the Sugar Associiation.

Question all things set before you... believe no one.

http://www.djwriter.com/blog/2005/01/truth-about-truthaboutsplendacom.html

Hehe, man, that is freaky. who knew there was such a cold war going on. Woe to he who is caught in the tasty chemical crossfire. Or something. Cut me some slack-it's the end of the day.

Salt is not "made out of chlorine" as tom puts it. Humans have been using salt for thousands of years. Chlorine and Sodium were not discovered until a couple hundred years ago when they were seperated into elemental forms using chemical processes (they are both too reactive to occur naturaly).
Of course salt contains sodium and chlorine, but it is less misleading to state that sodium (metal)and chlorine (gas) are "made from salt". I mean that the elemental forms of those were produced by an engineered process that started with naturally occuring salt. [Basically you take molten salt (over 1000 degrees) and attach a battery, sodium will go to one electrode and chlorine will go to the other.]
When they say Splenda is "made from sugar" that just means that sugar is the starting material that with a few chemical processes is synthesized into splenda. Is it "made from sugar" like a house is made from bricks? No. Is it made from sugar like herion is made from opium? Probably. It is easier to synthesize a molecule from a similar one that already exists. To switch one trans-methyl group to a cis-methyl group, and then switch that cis-methyl and 2 hydroxide groups to chloride ions would only take a few steps and therefore it is highly conceivable that the makers of splenda produced sucralose from a process that involes sucrose. In layman's terms, no reason not to think that splenda is "made from sugar"

"Data from this experiment may well be confounded by my heavy consumption of alcohol, caffeine, and whatever it is that makes cheap Chinese take-out so magically delicious (MSG)."

Wait but MSG is found mostly in potato chips, and other snack foods and most Chinese restrants in america don't use.

Also is MSG really bad??? some people say it make them sick but counld they just be allergic to MSG??