"artificial sweetener" news and stories

The iconic Necco Wafer is going au naturale.

The revamped product is now using red beet juice, purple cabbage, cocoa powder, paprika and turmeric to replace the artificial ingredients that had been flavoring and coloring the wafers for years.

But not every wafer made the cut.

Splenda is a somewhat controversial topic among food lovers, with some gourmands hailing it as the best thing since sugar and others arguing that it is only a matter of hours before some scientist discovers that the stuff drives monkeys insane, induces scabies, or makes your earlobes turn green. With that in mind, I'm going to state the following:

IF you use Splenda, and

IF you find yourself paying too much for the stuff, then

You might try visiting Splendid Life. The retail site for all things Splenda offers products that I haven't been able to find in stores at prices that are far below the prevailing rates in my neighborhood. Even with shipping, in fact, my recent Splenda purchase cost about half the price that my local supermarket charges. The only downside is that they tend to be a little slow about delivery; my order ended up taking about a month. Still, with savings like these, I'm willing to plan ahead.

Incidentally, the site also carries various Splenda-themed consumer goods, like t-shirts, baseball caps, and yoga mats. Personally, I'm avoiding the Splenda advertisements, largely because I don't want to encourage strangers to harangue me about Splenda-induced earlobe disease.

Coca-Cola will begin selling products made with Stevia, a zero-calorie sweetener derived from an herb that's gained a following in the heath food community despite not yet being approved by the FDA. Three flavors of Odwalla juice sweetened with a Stevia product called Rebiana are expected to hit the market this week.

Pepsi also has two Stevia-sweetened drinks ready for the market, but they say they won't start selling them until FDA gives Stevia the official OK. The FDA is expected to approve Stevia as "generally regarded as safe" any time now.

Coke hopes that Stevia, which is often described as "all natural" (whatever that means), will help reverse the decline in sales of soft drinks.

I've had Stevia sweetener before, and it didn't taste a whole lot different to me than other artificial sweeteners. But then, I'm a die-hard Diet Coke drinker, so I may not be the target audience.

Has anyone else tasted Stevia? Thoughts?

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If you're anything like me come October, you buy a big bag of Halloween candy, oh, three weeks before the actual holiday with the idea of "getting ahead"--only to have the entire bag mysteriously disappear, leaving you to explain to your significant other that it must have fallen into the cracks in the pantry. Or you're good, good, good until the day itself arrives, and ten minutes before the city's official trick-or-treating time starts, you're tearing over to the grocery to pick through the leftover bags because you've "accidentally" gorged on your own.

Or, (worst case scenario) you are really, really good until your kids have come home with their stash and collapsed into sugar comas in bed. And then you raid theirs and take out all the good stuff, and tell them the next day you went through the pile for "safety reasons."

This year, in order to distract myself from the actual candy, I decided to put together a little Halloween candy and wine-pairing guide. This way I'll have something to sip while I hand out candy and wait for my kids to come home with full buckets (insert evil grin here).

Candy and wine pairings after the jump.

So. Diet Coke kills sperm on contact. We thought you should know.

We feel sort of shocked, and also sort of remarkably unshocked.

Scientist Deborah Anderson and her team have been awarded one of this year's Ig Nobel Awards from Improbable Research for their work on both Coca Cola Classic and Diet Coke's contraceptive qualities.

Will this knowledge ever come in handy? Well, with a desperate situation and a little yoga, anything is possible. Never say never, right? Okay, yeah, maybe this once.

Other things we bet kill sperm: Jagermeister, Ramen Noodle broth, Tang, and everything at Taco Bell.

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