[sirdarksol]

Originally Posted by disgruntled

thanks for the advice...

has anyone heard anything about splenda? it is a alternative to sugar. i have not heard anything about the effects of it.

It is supposedly risk-free. No studies have linked any health issues (other than the same weight gain that can be found with both sugar and sugar-replacements).
I don't like the taste of the stuff. Supposedly there is only a small amount of the population that can tell the difference between Splenda and sugar, but about half of the people I know can tell the difference. Aside from that, it's horrible to bake with (cookies end up looking like dried-out playdough.)
My other issue comes from the source of Splenda. Splenda starts out as a normal sugar molecule. To make it so that the human body can't digest it, a chlorine molecule is added to it. First of all, I am leery about eating large quantities of anything that is engineered. Second, the chlorine molecule worries me.
Again, I would like to say that Splenda (and Xylitol, which is a natural alcohol sugar that has very few calories) has not had any major studies linking it to any health problem not experienced with regular sugar. (Though xylitol does have an unpleasant effect in dogs. Even a pack of gum sweetened with xylitol will trigger a dog's body to use up all of its sugar in a short period of time.)