Sugary duels...

We recently talked about Aspartame in class and how the public believed it was supposed to be bad for you. Equal and Nutrasweet are made from a company called Merisant. They are artificial sweeteners made from aspartame. Aspartame is a phenylalanine. Recently, in Philadelphia Merisant sued a company called McNeil nutritionals which makes Splenda.

In recent years, Splenda's sales have gone down and so McNeil launched a new advertising campaign saying ..."made from sugar...tastes just like sugar... but its not sugar" so it must be safe right? It is infact not made from sugar. Splenda, or sucralose as it's known in the industry, is also found in some low-calorie sodas, such as C2 from Coca-Cola, Edge from Pepsi, and upwards of 4,000 packaged-food products. An additional advantage for Splenda: Unlike aspartame (the key ingredient in Equal and NutraSweet), this additive retains its taste when heated. The two rival companies are battling it out because Merisant cannot really say that Equal is made from phenylalanine and tastes just like phenylalanine. Splenda sales rose while Equal's were affected and hence the fight.

Merisant basically claimed that Splenda underwent highly processed chemical compound created from chlorine and other compounds. It had dextrose a very simple sugar yes but how safe can such a sweetener be for the public?

Here is an example of how the public believes what they hear. They began to question Splenda without realizing that Merisant produces sweeteners that would be just as bad as Splenda. Another example of how far businesses go to retain their profits.