So, is SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener (Sucralose) safe? (updated March 2010)
Well now, this seems to be the million dollar question on so many minds nowadays ... especially amongst my fellow low-carbers.

When you do a GOOGLE search  for "SPLENDA SAFETY" this article of Jennifer's is generally listed 2nd, way ahead of the company's own websites
 and also way ahead of any of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener's detractors - so this page gets an awful lot of people reading it, and with good reason.

Now, back to the issue at hand ... (but also do checkout the very bottom of this page for an exciting development!)

and just maybe we can answer the million dollar question - is SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener safe for long-term human consumption?

(Our Family - April 1992) While it's true that Sucralose was tested over many years, and that there have been both human and animal trials with Sucralose, I suspect that the human trials must have been very controlled and likely did not represent an extreme case of Sucralose consumption and that the animal trials (probably using rats) did probably include extremely large amounts of Sucralose. Now I don't know about you, but I just cannot relate my health to that of rats! So then, is there a case of comparably extreme human Sucralose consumption? Yes, in fact there is! In fact ,to the best of my knowledge, there is only 1 such case in the world and I know them personally; you see, it is our family. Since 1991, when I became the first cookbook author in the world to start developing dessert (and other) recipes for my books, our family has consumed (on average) some 2,000 or more cups of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener annually, between the 4 of us, starting in 1991 when we were 35, 34, 7 and 4. The manufacturer of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener actually hired a film crew and flew it's people up from New-Brunswick, NJ to Alberta (where we lived at that time) to come and make a promotional movie/video featuring my family, which they then used to launch and promote the product, something that earned me the title of "The SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener lady", and for many years I became known as the foremost (non-company) spokesperson for SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener. It would be many years before SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener was approved for sale in the USA, but we in Canada got to know it "intimately". Anyhow, my first "Splendid-series" book was published in 1993, my second book in 1997, my third book in 2001, my fourth in October 2002, my fifth in October 2003, my sixth in April 2004  and  the seventh book in October 2004.  The development and perfection of hundreds upon hundreds of dessert recipes required the use of a lot of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener! A point that should not be under-emphasized, is that an entire country, Canada, was using SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener from about 1991 ... that is some 8 years before it was available for use in the USA and more than a decade before it was available in many other countries, and all that time doing so without much fuss or bother at all. In fact, Canadians have been using SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener in a variety of forms long before most people (around the world) even knew it existed. So imagine all of our collective surprise when a decade later some folks started portraying SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener as being a "new" sweetener and intimating (but never having the courage to categorically state) that it was a hazardous substance as well? It does not often happen this way, but us 35 million humble, gentle, peace-loving, quiet folks that live to the north of the mightiest nation on earth - the one that rules the world, the United States of America, actually can talk quite authoritatively on the subject of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener's safety, it's strengthsand it's weaknesses. I must mention one strange thing about SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener. It was always manufactured in the USA (not Canada) and then exported to Canada for many years - long before it even became available in the USA, though the very slow pace of FDA approval had a lot to do with that. I suspect that the manufacturer anticipated SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener being made available in the USA sooner than it actually was, and so decided to locate the production of it  inside the USA. Anyhow, as I update this article, almost 14 years after SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener first appeared on our store shelves, we are now 48, 47, 20 and 17 years old. To be totally safe, I suppose you could all wait another 36 years or so, then after 5 decades you will know, more definitively, if SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener has harmed us and/or others in any way. BUT, until then, this is how we reasoned, when deciding to integrate SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener (Sucralose) into our family's diet:

Back in 1991, we were ASSURED (by the USA manufacturers of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener) that:

(1) Sucralose is Chemically Inert and does not react with anything while in your body - This was tough for us to verify.
(2) All the Sucralose ingested is excreted (un-metabolized) from your body - Once again, it would be tricky for us to verify this.
(3) Sucralose has no calorific content and cannot be used as an energy source - True, but it is interesting to note that SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener  does indeed contain calories, having 1/8th the calories of Sugar - higher than some other sweeteners, but still way better than sugar!
(4) Sucralose is very stable, even intense cooking/baking heat will not change it - This does seem to be the case.
(5) Sucralose tastes very much like Sugar (Sucrose) and has no strange aftertaste - Well ... it is the best tasting of the sweeteners we have tested.
(6) Sucralose has been approved for a very wide range of uses by the FDA and other countries - The FDA and other countries' Health departments/agencies (Health Canada being the first) did indeed approve it, albeit, as always seems the case, with some slight reservations.
(7) Sucralose has been subjected to many tests over many years in many countries - Yes, but it was not tested in huge amounts on people of both sexes and of all ages and over a long period of time. We Canadians became those test subjects. So then, you may ask, how did SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener fare?

UPDATE (June 2004): So, what if anything (health-wise) went wrong with our family during the last 14 or so years? With the benefit of hind-sight, probably around 1995 or so, I developed Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, a fairly common autoimmune condition, especially in women in their mid-life, that affects the thyroid. However, this went undiagnosed (as is often the case) until 2002. Since this condition is "acquired" by women, the world over, who have never heard of or used SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener, I doubt very much that SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener was to blame for me getting it.. However, this condition made me "hypothyroid", which meant that losing weight (an ongoing struggle for most of my adult life) got to be almost impossible, and using SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener to help me in that regard, took on a whole new meaning! I have fluctuated from my marriage weight (at 22 years of age) of 110lbs to as much as 150lbs, which on my 5'3" frame was quite noticeable! I regard my ideal weight now to be around 120lbs, though this has been a rather elusive goal for me, with the mid to low 130's being where I have spent most of my last 9 years. Developing cookbooks (continuously) is, by it's very nature, quite calorific. I would hasten to add that if I were not developing low-carb recipes, I undoubtedly would be well above 150lbs, however, I'm in the low 130's. Every now and then I manage to push my weight down into the 120's, but having a "problematic thyroid" makes that quite a challenge!  I started seriously investigating Low-Carbing back in the late 1990's, and by late 1998 my husband and I started to low-carb. In the last few years, my husband went on to have some struggles with mild hypertension which now is under control, but this runs in his family and probably has more to do with his weight (at times, like on world travels, he cheats) and a higher salt consumption than what is wise, as well as his "driven" nature and his stress-filled career and life - his in-laws (sadly) having been a major contributor to that stress. Other than that, our dental health is great, our weight is (almost) under control. We all have suffered from blessedly few viral/bacterial infections, since almost entirely eliminating sugar from our lives, and even fewer after adopting the low-carbing way of life. Overall I'd have to say that our general health and sense of well-being is excellent. As we did for our own family, you must research the topic well and decide whether to include SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener (Sucralose) in your own diet or the diet of your family. For us now, there is no turning back - we are committed, long time users of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener. Time will tell if that was a wise or an unwise choice. We simply decided that our family's "Sweet-tooth" could not be removed, but that Sugar was certainly not making us any healthier! That was our family dilemma almost 14 years ago now.  Back then we evaluated the alternatives and chose to integrate SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener into our Diet ... at least until something better came along. Nothing has ... as of yet. Above (and below) are recent photos of us all, taken when our eldest son turned 20, in early June 2004. They show all of us, with our eldest son now 20, our youngest 17, me 47 and Ian 48 ... still happy and healthy and, though we need to get serious again about "those last 10 lbs or so", not looking at all out of control as Ian and I approach 50, having (just this month) celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. We are childhood sweethearts and have known and loved each other for 34 years, this Christmas. Obviously we care about each other and our children and would not do anything to jeopardize each other or our children.

Addressing the inevitable "scare stories" out there ... 

So, before you get "traumatized" by the  inevitable "scare-mongers" out there on the web, just stop and think logically for a while ... Canada is an entire country in which MILLIONS of people have been regularly using SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener for almost 14 years now. It has a National (Government run) Health care system, for which Federal and Provincial (State) dollars pay. So what exactly would be the incentive for Health Canada (our FDA) to approve SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener and keep it approved, if it was costing these governments Billions of $'s in ongoing health care costs? Thus the thinly-veiled allegations that somehow these international "Health agencies", like Health-Canada and others, do not know what they are doing or are somehow "in the pocket" of Johnson & Johnson (the parent company), so that they can make (in Canada) some 10's of Millions of $'s in profits each year (which is mostly sent down to the USA, the parent company anyway), while we here in Canada get stuck with a Billion $ health-care bill (for which we all have to pay, as a result of an "unsafe product") is just plain ludicrous! I have no doubt that our Health Department (which is totally independent of the FDA) knew exactly what it was doing when Canada became the first country to approve SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener for Human consumption back in the early 90's - some 8 years before the FDA approved it for consumption in the USA. We have all been using SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener for almost 14 years now, and there really have been no problems of any significance reported here. Still, just remember that there are no "iron-clad" guarantees" in life. Not consuming any food or drink will probably protect you from harmful substances, but then you'd be dead within 2-3 days from thirst anyway - however consuming just gasoline will kill you much quicker. Somewhere in the middle of those two extremes lies "reason" ... and that's a really good place to live! Ian's Dad, as a young boy, was pretty much  already "given up for dead" from a massive bacterial infection (in the late 1920's) and lay dying in a remote part of the world (at the southern tip of Africa) when their family Doctor (at that time) suggested that "Sulfur drugs", the first antibiotics, just newly available in Germany, had been noted to cure that particular infection. These man-made (not natural!) Sulfur drugs were then flown from Germany to South Africa, in the antique planes of those days, and were successfully  used to save his life. He went on to become a Doctor in the remotest regions of Southern Africa, in turn saving many people from dying from Typhus and other deadly diseases. The family in the picture (above) would not exist today were it not for man-made substances, which the same "good Dr." who regularly "bad-mouths" SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener, also "bad-mouths". Let's get real ... to take a "hard and fast" stance against everything "not natural" is also just plain dumb! Yes, there are dangerous natural and man-made substances, and there are good natural and man-made substances ... so let's use "reason" to find the good ones, and "reason" to avoid the bad ones, but very importantly, let's try and avoid "hysteria" for determining either - that really serves nobody well at all!

The future ... 

Rest assured, if we notice ANY problems possibly relating to our massive SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener consumption, we will let you know - right here on this web-site after doing some due-diligence. For now, ponder this: The average person (in North America) consumes about 170 lbs of Sugar a year (that is around 380 cups) compared with about 10 lbs a century ago, and displays a wide variety of side-effects from this over consumption of Sugar! In my family, for more than a decade now, we have almost eliminated the consumption of Sugar and each of us has consumed much more than that (some 500 cups annually) of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener instead of Sugar. On this website, there is a story of my "Thyroid problems". While it is remotely possible that these can somehow be related to my massive SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener consumption, I personally doubt it. None of my family members seem to be showing any similar problems and thyroid problems have a natural tendency to occur (quite frequently) in women of my age, most of whom have never used any SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener.

So, for now you can regard us Canadians as "Human test subjects" (notice that I did not say "test-dummies") for SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener consumption. If anything does go wrong with any of  the members of our family, we will detail it on this website, as we have done above, openly and honestly,  and then we can all debate, openly and honestly, whether we/you think SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener (reasonably) may have had anything to do with it. Remember, we have almost a decade-long head start on most of you in the massive consumption of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener (Sucralose) and, without a doubt, as far as people are concerned, we have been the largest users of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener on this planet! We likely have each consumed more SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener (Sucralose) in almost 14 years, than most people will consume in their entire lifetimes. Our family and children have grown up on SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener and we are all still alive, well, happy, in love ... and generally thriving. Worth mentioning is that by almost eliminating Sugar consumption in our family, we have indeed noticed improved health! However, it can be argued (with some merit) that  if we eliminated Sugar and never used SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener, we would likely be even healthier? Yes, perhaps, but one has to enjoy life too, and tasty sweet treats have been and continue to be an important part of all of our lives! 

Now for some common observations about SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener and other sweeteners:

Sucralose is made from Sugar and is used to make SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener which tastes like sugar. Sucralose, has no calories but also does not measure, look or act much like sugar. Sucralose is 600 x sweeter than sugar, so much less is needed for the same sweetness. To make it appear as a replacement for sugar, Sucralose is bulked up with Maltodextrin a carbohydrate derived from corn, giving it some calories but making it measure and act more like sugar. This combination is called SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener Granular. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener Granular weighs 1/8 as much as sugar, has 1/8th the calories but lacks the volume sugar imparts to recipes, does not caramelize, is very tricky to use for chocolate recipes of all kinds, is even trickier to use for candy making, has a definite "lag" in it's sweetness and is generally not as easy to use as sugar in baking, which is exactly why I did much experimenting and wrote these SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener-based cookbooks, to show how these flaws can be compensated for. For any recipes in which sugar contributes greatly to the structure and volume (which accounts for many desserts), it is not possible to simply substitute SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener, and expect to still get a similar result. You need to make substantial modifications to the other ingredients in the recipe. These modifications are essential in order to end up with a dessert similar to the sugar-based original. This problem is not as prevalent in meat/vegetable dishes which use less sugar and in which the Sugar is simply used to "sweeten" the dish. Baking, Desserts and Candy is where the major challenges lie. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener Granular contains 100 calories per cup, whereas sugar contains 800 calories. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is the 'marketing' or 'brand' name. Sucralose is its chemical name and it has ZERO Carbs and calories. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is supposedly chemically inert and we are told that all the Sucralose one consumes is excreted unused. The Maltodextrin (starch used to bulk-up the SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener) is, of course, recognized by the body as a 'weak' carbohydrate (actually it has a high glyceamic index, but because there is relatively little of it, by weight, present in a cup of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener it adds relatively few carbs) and is treated as such by the body - thus the Carbs/Calories in SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is heat stable at baking temperatures (like sugar and unlike Aspartame). SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is approved for use in the USA (1998), Canada (1991) and many other countries. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener has been subjected to rigorous tests over a 20 year period and is generally deemed "safe". SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener was discovered by the giant UK sugar company Tate and Lyle in the 70's. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is marketed by a Johnson and Johnson subsidiary, the McNeil Specialty Products company. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener has been used in large amounts by my family for some 13   (going on 14) years now. Each member of my family has consumed thousands of cups of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener over that period, with no obviously apparent ill effects?. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is certainly worth investigating as a sugar substitute!

SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is certainly still a cut above other artificial sweeteners - but it is not perfect!

SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener Granular is what I use preferentially and occasionally I will used sugar free chocolate chips sweetened with a sugar alcohols (usually maltitol or erythritol). I prefer not to use Sugar. I absolutely refuse to use Aspartame/Nutrasweet/Equal, Saccharin, Cyclamates or Sorbitol - even though they are cheaper. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener does not cause abdominal discomfort or tooth decay. Maltitol  and erythritol have some potential for low-carbers, however, I tend to count half the total number of carbs when using them - just to be on the safe side. The problem is that most of the sugar alcohols (Those ending in "ol"), either cause various degrees of gastric distress (you may as well buy and eat Ex-lax rather than buying a Sorbitol sweetened chocolate candy) or others have a cooling effect (erythritol) on your mouth (kind of like menthol) if used in large quantities,  and are not all really "TOTALLY ZERO CARB" options, besides being expensive and sometimes harder to find! I someone were to mass-produce Erythitol and belnd it (in small quantities) with another sweetener, say Sucralose, then the combination would prove very useful for baking and candy-making etc. since Erythritol has the basic properties of sugar that most other high-intensity sweeteners do not, such as adding crispness and allowing for caramelizing etc. but it cannot make up the bulk of the product, since the mouth-cooling effect would render it less than perfect. Alas, no changes in sight at the SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener company - they still insist on using Maltodextrin only.

Acesulfame-K and Stevioside are somewhat interesting, though I tend towards preferring Stevia,  since even though Acesulfame-K has received GRAS approval by the FDA, I'm really not quite happy with it either. As for Stevia, I have to add a word of reason here that is often missing from discussions of natural products. Just because Stevia occurs naturally (exactly the same can be said about SUGAR, by the way) simply does not guarantee that it is safe, although all the known evidence does seem to support it's safety. As a result, the FDA has not yet classified it as "Generally regarded as safe" (GRAS) substance. Because the word "natural" can legitimately be applied to Stevia, it has quite big following, and has a potentially HUGE following if some large company would actually do the right things with it - but that does not mean that it is definitively "Safe", or even, for that matter, that it is "safer" than SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener, but, personally,  I have to think it probably is just fine. However,  really, it was the "taste-test" that ruled it out for me - it's taste (in its various forms) certainly leaves (no pun intended) a lot to be desired! It is a "bitter-sweet" experience. For now, it is important to note that Stevia is not approved by the FDA  for general use as a sweetener, and thus I cannot promote its use in my cookbooks or on this website, as that could lead to seizure of my books at the border by US customs as you can read in the unbelievably draconian story: http://www.apfn.org/THEWINDS/1998/07/stevia.html . UPDATE: Friday Dec 19, 2008 -- The FDA sent a fax to Cargill Inc and Merisant Co's Whole Earth Sweetener unit on Dec 17 saying that the agency has no objection to the petitioners' claim that Stevia is generally recognized as safe sweetener. Rebaudioside A (rebiana) derived from stevia leaves, is marketed by Cargill and Marisant Co. and finds applications in new low-sugar beverages being developed by Coke-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. According to the Institute of Food Technologist, an organization representing tens of thousands of food technologists and food and beverage companies, the GRAS status clears the way for the biggest beverage companies to launch their planned low-sugar beverages with this sweetener. However, before rushing ahead to use the many new Stevia based sweeteners, please read: http://low-carb-news.blogspot.com/2009/10/possible-stevia-side-effect.html   It is intriguing to see the makers of  SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener releasing their own Stevia based sweetener, see: https://www.suncrystals.com/products/granulated/nutritional-information/

In my humble opinion,  after 17 years of working with SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener, no perfect sweetener to replace sugar is available yet, They all have "pros and cons", but for now SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is the best one out there, and until that changes, that's what I will continue to use, and endorse.

July 2008 Update: Well, finally we have an intriguing new development in the "sweetener" market place - It seems that a large US company has solved the "bitter-sweet" Stevia dilemma, and has mixed the resulting substance along with another sweetener (Erythritol) resulting in a new product that may well prove to be a game-changer! I'm truly excited!!

March 2010 update: After almost 2 years, I'm a little less excited - this product has so much potential but in my opinion, it is is not being target-marketed and priced correctly, which is why it is not even close to becoming a house-hold name yet. They are courting the soft-drink industry and forgetting just how much SUGAR each family buys and uses each year. That strategy probably will not succeed in unseating Aspartame in the soft-drink market-place, where it is well accepted and cheap, whilst most families have to pay too much for alternatives to sugar and have very few choices.

Now, Jennifer (who grew up in AFRICA) has a past that is way more intriguing than any cookbooks she has authored,
or for that matter, any imitative with SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener, and now there is a NOVEL based on her life-story:




What others are saying about the book . . .

“A delightful read. It evoked in me memories of my own teenage years, growing up in Cape Town. I now serve the people of South Africa as Ambassador to Panama and have had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know the author. I look forward to reading Jonathan’s sequel to this book, as I am sure there will be one.”
—Ambassador Leslie Manley, Ambassador from South Africa to Panamá, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Perú

CLICK HERE for more about this ROMANCE- SUSPENSE FILLED THRILLER:

Paperback  - Purchasing Options    
Buy from Eureka Publishing (PayPal) $14.99
Buy from $16.99

[ Dr. Eades examines the "Sugar lobby" and their carefully crafted anti-Splenda shenanigans ]

[ Click here to order the "Splendid series" of cookbooks ]

[ Click here to go to my "Sweety" website ]

[ Click here to go to my "Low-Carb" website ]

or if you tire easily of  this "tempest in a tea-pot" created by selfish interests ... you may rather want to:

[ Click here to read the fun story of my "Sweetest date" in a long time ...]

McNeil Specialty Products Company has gone to a lot of trouble and expense to allay people's justified fears concerning the safety of SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener low-Calorie Sweetener, yet their expensive flashy website: http://www.splendatruth.com/ ranks lower than Jen's websites when a GOOGLE search is done for "SPLENDA SAFETY" - and all they had to do was say: "Go speak with Jennifer's family" and most people would conclude that their families will never consume even 1/100th as much Splenda in a Lifetime as what we each have in 17 years, and well, common sense would prevail.

Copyright matters:

McNeil Specialty Products Company and Lifescan are subsidiaries of Johnson and Johnson and these are all copyrighted and trademark names. They own the copyrights to SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener, Sucralose, the SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener Logo, the Lifescan logo and all associated Logos and trade names used (with their permission) in our books and on this web site. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener low-Calorie Sweetener  is the registered trademark of McNeil-PPC Inc. Please respect the copyrights and trademarks etc. mentioned above. SPLENDAŽ Low-Calorie SweetenerŽ Low-Calorie Sweetener is the registered trademark of McNeil-PPC, Inc. Their Logos are displayed with their permission in my books and websites. Neither McNeil Specialty Products nor McNeil Consumer Products Company have been involved in the development, production or distribution of these cookbooks. In hindsight - WHAT A PITY for them, and for me.