"splenda" news and stories

But that's what I eat every single day. And I'm only counting the tea I drink, not actual food.

I'm not a coffee drinker, I'm a tea drinker, so I'm probably healthy in that way, since tea has been proven to have many good health benefits. And I use fat free milk in my tea too. But the sugar. Oh, the sugar. I have 4 packets in each cup of tea that I make, and I have around 4 cups a day. That can't be good for me, can it? (And that's an average day - there have been some days when I've had 5 or 6 cups.)

I've tried sugar substitutes. I'm a fan of Splenda, though I can't get used to using it in tea (sorry). The other substitues don't do anything for me. I know, I know, I could either have flavored teas (nah, never liked them), or go without any sugar in the tea at all. No sugar? That's just crazy talk.

Somewhere around 25% of coffee drinkers in the US now prefer their coffee with a flavor, such as hazelnut or vanilla, and at least that many use calorie-free sweeteners in place of sugar on a regular basis. Splenda's new Flavor Blends for Coffee combine those concepts. They are packets of sweetener flavored to taste like French Vanilla, Hazelnut and Mocha, allowing consumers to "customize hot beverages at home or on the go with no calories."

The Flavor Blends only launched this week, so they might not be in stores in your area yet, but for fans of Splenda, they sound very promising. They will be ideal for using at the office, rather than going out to Starbucks for a high-calorie (and relatively high-cost) mocha. Their small size also allows them be tucked into a purse or coat pocket when traveling, but they will work well for regular home use, too.

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Stevia is not a sweetener that is approved for use by the FDA. It is actually classified as a dietary supplement, an herb, that happens to be sweeter than sugar and can be - and is - used as a sweetener. It is all natural, has no calories (or carbs) and is getting more and more popular, though it makes up only a small portion of the non-sugar sweetener market.

Its popularity is due to an increased awareness for the product, thanks to well-placed advertisements and hard work on the part of the SweetLeaf Stevia brand's LA marketing firm, which has made sure that high end restaurants and even stores carry the product, prompting even more coverage from newspapers and magazines.

The only problem with Stevia, according to both the manufacturers and consumers, is that it is still hard to find. Not all stores carry it. Some stores, like Trader Joe's, try to make the product easily visible, but because it is an herb, it is often stocked in the supplements aisle in other stores, not in the section of the market with the sugars and sweeteners. Clearly this is not a huge setback, however, because the sales of the sweetener are steadily increasing. In the last year alone, they have increased almost 40%, though overall sales are only one tenth of the sales of Splenda, the top selling non-sugar sweetener.

If the interest in the product keeps growing at this rate - and it seems likely to - we could see Stevia become more widely available and used in more packaged products in place of artificial sugars.

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Dr. Biggles, who blogs primarily about the wonders of meat at Meathenge, will occasionally diverge from his carnivorous inclinations and post something a little bit different. Fortunately for his readers, posts like this one, about a batch of no-sugar-added Blackberry Jam, are equally satisfying. Made from fresh blackberries and apples, as the apples provide pectin to keep the jam together, the reason the jam is sugarless and was sweetened with Splenda is that it was made to be shared with a diabetic. Although the recipe had no real sugar added to it, it sounds as though it turned out perfectly and was a hit with everyone- diabetic or not. If you pick up a bunch of fresh berries and can't think of wh

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Aside from the claim of "Zero calories!", which may or may not be considered a benefit, Splenda can not be considered to be "health food." The popular artificial sweetener is just that: artificial. This week, however, the FDA decided that some foods that use Splenda can claim limited health benefits because of the fact that they contain the sweetener. Following a request from the McNeil Nutritionals, which manufactures Splenda , the FDA is allowing products made with Splenda to state that they do not promote tooth decay. The claim cannot be made for the sweetener alone. Companies that wish to make use of the health claim must use the following wording: Frequent eating of foods high in sugars and starches as between-meal snacks can promote tooth decay. Sucralose, the sweetening ingredient used to sweeten this food, unlike sugars, does not promote tooth decay.

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