Submitted by: Submitted by shirleyjoseph17
Views: 84
Words: 974
Pages: 4
Category: Science and Technology
Date Submitted: 04/19/2014 06:18 PM
The use of Sweeteners and the Rise in Obesity
Splenda is an artificial sweetener that people use on a daily basis. It was first made by a British sugar company who wanted to find other ways to mix sugar also known as sucrose with other laboratory chemicals. When they tried to mix these things together it ended coming out successful because the taste was sweeter than regular sugar. This was examined by Shashikant Phadnis who was a foreign graduate student. Splenda is really known as sucralose and even though it is originated from sugar it goes through a procedure that replaces three atoms of chlorine for three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sucrose molecule. Chlorine, fluorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine are all halogens that were discovered by the researchers at Queens College that could be used to change the sweetness of Splenda. The chlorine was chosen because it can easily dissolve with other substances even though it does have to be transformed with artificial chemicals so that when it is digested into the body it will not break down so easy as to prevent cancer or carcinogenic hazard. The key chemical make- up of Splenda consist of 1, 6-dichloro-1, 6-dideoxy-BETA-D-fructofuranosyl-4-chloro-4-deoxy-alpha-D-galactopyranoside.
In the end Splenda is really made up of a whole lot of chemicals we know nothing about and 2 % of those chemicals is a mix of different things that can be harmful to the body but because they do not have to be reported to the FDA also known as US Food and Drug Administration they do not have to report these ingredients. These things can penetrate our intestine wall so Splenda is not necessarily safe as people may think it is. The FDA first approved Splenda in Canada in 1991 and then approved it in the United States in 1998. Johnson and Johnson had bought the right to make sucralose in the United States as a product that could be sold in stores. At that time Johnson and Johnson formed a company they called McNeil Nutrionals under...