SPLENDA is Worse Than SUGAR!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Shame on you, splenda. In 1991, we were all introduced to a new zero calorie sweetener, and it tasted really good. Name was Splenda. Came in a little yellow packet, and we love it. And it is the most widely used non calorie sweetener that there is. Today, we're going to reveal some new truths that we found out. Welcome to the Duster Mud podcast, episode 58. [00:00:29] Speaker B: I spent 25 years in the United States Air Force, and we traveled the world and lived in 21 different houses. And after all of that, we decided to retire and moved to the Ozarks of Missouri. And we now have a regenerative farm, first generation small farm. And as part of our mission with the farm, we also have this podcast, the Duster Mud podcast. [00:00:54] Speaker A: And we would love it if, if you. You would go ahead and just hit that subscribe button and join our growing community that we have here. We do put out a podcast twice a week and a video on Saturdays. So make sure to check out what we've already made and stay tuned for the coming videos. What do we got today? Let's get into splenda. [00:01:15] Speaker B: So, our last podcast, we discussed the American Diabetes association and the conflicts of interest that arise when major donations are pouring in from companies that make diabetes medication and even the Idaho potato commission. It wasn't. I bet that we hadn't had the podcast up for 24 hours when I found another article. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Really? [00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah. It was released not long after we released the podcast. It was the 18 April 2024 from the Guardian. The title of the article is death by diabetes, America's preventable epidemic. She was fired after not endorsing splenda filled salads to people with diabetes. Why? So that was the name of the article. Really? [00:02:04] Speaker A: So we've got. So we've got someone losing their job over it? [00:02:08] Speaker B: It would appear so. That's at least what the lawsuit states. So Elizabeth Hannah had a simple job, help people with diabetes figure out what to eat. She worked for the American Diabetes association, the world's leading diabetes research and patient advocacy group. It was her job to be the dietitian for the Ada American Diabetes group. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Coming up with recipes that they put onto their website to recommend to people to make it their home and create a meal that is good for someone who's diabetic. [00:02:49] Speaker B: Right. And her lawsuit alleges that she was fired after she refused to post a recipe for a cucumber and onion salad that included a third of a cup of splenda. [00:03:03] Speaker A: Third of a cup of splenda. Hey, no big deal. Splenda, zero calorie. It's super yummy. But there is a big deal. [00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what got me interested was why would a nutritionist not want to recommend splenda? [00:03:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:03:21] Speaker B: So. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Well, so there was some research. What is splenda? What is it actually even made of? We've been talking about a lot of other zero calorie sweeteners on this podcast. Podcast being keto. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Oddly enough, we've never mentioned splenda as one that we recommend, and here's why. Splenda is often referred to as sucralose, and you'll often see them, like, as a synonymous, using one word for the other. And a lot of times you'll hear sucralose, and then you'll see in parentheses splenda. Right. So, like, they're. And the company that makes splenda found developed sucralose in 1991. As you mentioned, it's 600 times sweeter than sugar. [00:04:15] Speaker A: So it doesn't take very much of it in order to achieve the sweetness that you would want from a powdered sweetener. So how do you package that? [00:04:25] Speaker B: Well, it actually takes a tiny bit. Teeny, teeny, tiny bit. And so in order to get it into those little yellow packets that you described, they had to make a filler. They had to add a filler, I guess. [00:04:39] Speaker A: Right. [00:04:39] Speaker B: So in those little yellow packets, the. [00:04:41] Speaker A: Filler is commonly used maltodextrin. [00:04:45] Speaker B: So maltodextrin, it's in everything. Malodextrose are the two in the little packets. If you get the granulated splenda, which is to be used in baking as a sugar substitute, it does not have the dextrose. It's just maltodextrin. So. Okay. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:05] Speaker B: Okay. [00:05:05] Speaker A: Those things are in everything. [00:05:06] Speaker B: It's on the ingredient list, but it's maltodextrin and sucralose. Those are the two ingredients. Take the granulated version, maltodextrin, sucralose. There's no discussion as to the percentages. [00:05:20] Speaker A: Of each because that's what they were calling for when, in the recipe. When they were calling for a third of a cup, it would have been the granulated. [00:05:27] Speaker B: The granulated kind. Yep. And it touts the, you know, splenda has touted that that granulated is a one for one replacement for sugar, and it's zero calorie. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Awesome. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Well, a couple of things. They're allowed to call it zero calorie because when they discuss it, they discuss it in a 1 gram serving and in a 1 gram serving, the sucralose actually does have zero calories. The maltodextrin has 3.8 calories, or four. [00:06:03] Speaker A: This is a little known fact, according to the, I guess would be the FDA, who's oversees this, that a product in the United States, if it is underneath five calories, you can say zero. [00:06:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:19] Speaker A: So if it's less than five, you are allowed to print on your label that it is zero calorie. Okay. [00:06:25] Speaker B: So because splenda is four, they're allowed to call it a zero calorie sweetener. [00:06:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:06:31] Speaker B: All right. Now what percentage? [00:06:33] Speaker A: Nobody's getting all wild about four calories. [00:06:36] Speaker B: Four calories. Until you start using a third of a cup or a cup. Or if you're thinking I'm going to be baking cookies and they're going to be better for me because they're sugar free, because they have splenda. Now, you actually like the fact that there's zero calories. I'll use in quotes, in air quotes. Actually, four calories in that little packet does not mean that your third of a cup or half a cup or a cup of sugar is actually zero calories. [00:07:07] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:07] Speaker B: It actually, now the calories start getting significant because if you think about the amount that you would sprinkle out of that little packet and then compare that to a one cup serving or a third of a cup in the case of this particular recipe. [00:07:21] Speaker A: But that's not the dicey part. [00:07:23] Speaker B: So the amounts that are contained in splenda, it is 99% maltodextrin and 1% sucralose. So the fact that you hear or you see sucralose and splenda as being synonymous with each other is so very misleading because 99% of what's in splenda is maltodextrin. Now, splenda is advertised to be a diabetic friendly sweetener because it's zero calorie. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Yes, it is zero calorie, and a lot of them are. But the interesting thing about splenda here is the glycemic index of splenda is not one that a diabetic would be interested in actually using. [00:08:27] Speaker B: So glycemic index is a measure of what happens to a person's blood sugar after they have digested it. It's an empty stomach thing. Some doctors don't like it, but it's a tool to use to compare different foods. And the index is what happens to your blood sugar after you digest it. So it goes from zero to 100 with 100 being pure glucose. So the glycemic index of maltodextrin is anywhere. I have seen it as low as 95 and as high as 185. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Okay, let's do a little bit of a comparison. Well, what does that mean? Let's take the sugar that this splenda is replacing. What is the glycemic index of table sugar compared to the glycemic index of splenda? [00:09:26] Speaker B: The glycemic index of table sugar is 65. [00:09:30] Speaker A: So a diabetic person would be better off to actually just consume the sugar than they would this artificially masked weird thing in splenda. [00:09:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I. You would be, man. Yes. I guess if you're. [00:09:57] Speaker A: If you're solely basing it on the numbers and what your blood in your body is going to do with the material that you've put in it, the numbers say that it would be better to eat the sugar, even though that is bad. [00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. [00:10:11] Speaker A: I'm not saying to eat sugar. I'm comparing the two, because we all know, dude, if you're diabetic, don't eat sugar. Like, we know that. [00:10:21] Speaker B: But maltodextrin is going to do spike your blood sugar higher and faster than sugar. [00:10:30] Speaker A: There's a problem. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a problem. [00:10:33] Speaker A: So we've been led to believe that it is good for a diabetic when, in fact, as it turns out, it is not. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And what happened in this lawsuit with Hannah Elizabeth Hannah is splenda had just donated a million dollars to the American Diabetes association. [00:10:58] Speaker A: That's weird. [00:11:00] Speaker B: And in the lawsuit, I wasn't there. But in the lawsuit, she claims that along with that donation came a demand, basically, to include splenda in the recipes. [00:11:16] Speaker A: So now the nutritionist is being asked, forced to recommend a certain brand of sweetener to the entire population through the American Diabetes association and saying, hey, you use this as a recommendation. [00:11:37] Speaker B: And she. [00:11:40] Speaker A: Refused to. [00:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And splenda is used more than twice. The next one, like, the next artificial or non sugar, non nutritive, whatever. Sweetener is sweetened low, and splenda is double that. So, like, it has become very widely accepted as a better option. Like, that's the option to go to if you're wanting, I like it, a zero calorie sweetener. And if you're concerned about your health, then splenda would be your option. Like, that's been the talking point, when in reality, the glycemic index is worse. So I look on Splenda's website, and I'm like, what do they say about it. So I go to the. [00:12:24] Speaker A: Let them explain themselves. Yeah. [00:12:26] Speaker B: I go to the frequently asked questions segment. And in there, the question is there, what is the glycemic index of splenda? And the answer is, glycemic index isn't a good thing to look at. [00:12:43] Speaker A: These are not the droids you were looking for. [00:12:45] Speaker B: You would be better off to look at glycemic load. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Cool. Let's look at it. [00:12:49] Speaker B: And then it has a little link, and you click on the link for glycemic load, and it says, glycemic load varies from person to person. [00:12:57] Speaker A: So they answered the question, a frequently asked question with a non answer. They didn't answer it. They can't answer it. Not publicly. They don't want it. They don't want to answer that. [00:13:10] Speaker B: Why? One of the places that I found that listed both the glycemic index and glycemic load of maltodextrin was had a glycemic index of 95 and a glycemic load of 94. So, like, yeah, the fact that they're sending you to glycemic load, really, the idea is how much of it are you eating and what, you know, like, that's the. That's where it comes in to glycemic load. But the point being is it's still higher than sugar even. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Right. It is not good for anybody who thinks that they're doing their body good, honestly, because whenever you go, when you're going for a sugar free option, what you're really looking for is to keep the insulin response down. But if you've got a high glycemic index or high glycemic load, your insulin response is going to be off the charts. And that's what we're trying to avoid, is no insulin response to keep the. [00:14:20] Speaker B: Insulin under control, especially for a type two diabetic. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. [00:14:26] Speaker B: You're thinking, I'm doing good. I'm having. Yeah, I'm having a sweetener that's recommended by the American Diabetes association, and it's zero calorie and it's better than sugar, when in reality, it's almost double the glycemic index. [00:14:44] Speaker A: So again, this really just points to a problem within the money and the sponsorships. Whenever there are, whether it's a drug company or a food company, sponsoring an association like this and really putting the dollar sign influence into an association that is supposed to care about the patients or the populations health, not the health of their bottom line. [00:15:16] Speaker B: This isn't the first time that this has come up with the American Diabetes association. In 2006, the ADA had just inked a $1.5 million sponsorship deal with Cadbury Schweppes, the world's largest confectioner. [00:15:33] Speaker A: So the diabetes association going into business and making agreements with a chocolate company. [00:15:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Now, y'all, cryberry's good. [00:15:45] Speaker B: That's good chocolate. [00:15:48] Speaker A: It really is. We lived in England. [00:15:50] Speaker B: It was delicious. [00:15:52] Speaker A: But at any rate, that's not. That's not a company that we want involved with the health and wellness of the diabetics in. In this country and across the world, because, largely, organizations around the world are influenced by and listened to the American Diabetes association. So they're not just influencing what's happening within our 50 states. They're actually influencing what's going on around the world. And that's a lot of power. That's a lot of influence. And that. That is. That is a level of. I really don't even like the word of corporate greed. Like, I don't like to go there, but it just. It's. The conflict of interest is so blatant that I. It really is mind boggling. [00:16:49] Speaker B: We watched doctor Ken Barry this week, and his most recent little podcast was, we need a new american diabetes association. [00:16:59] Speaker A: We need another one. [00:17:00] Speaker B: And as we were listening to him, he raised a lot of the same points. Not exactly the same way that we did in our last podcast. And, man, I can't agree with him more about this one as, like, this just seems like it's time to do something different, because, as you mentioned, Shelley, that so many people listen to the American Diabetes association, and it's becoming very blatantly obvious to me that they do not have the best interest of the diabetic patients in mind. They can't. You can't recommend something with a higher glycemic index than sugar as a replacement for sugar. [00:17:44] Speaker A: It's nearly criminal to me. It really. It really is. It's nearly criminal what they're doing. And because so many people are so confused by what to eat to begin with, that they say, gosh, okay, I have diabetes. What should I eat? And their doctor probably recommended, go to the American Diabetes association website. They've got some amazing recipes on there. Go check them out. And that's going to get your a one c down. Your blood glucose is going to get in check. All of these things. That is not the case. That is not the case at all, because the recipes on that website don't. They are not good for diabetics. It makes my blood boil, to be quite frank. Like, it really is just ticking me off, because people don't know what to eat. They go there to see what to eat, and what's there are lies. [00:18:40] Speaker B: I'll say it fairly. Yeah. So what sugar? What sugar sweetener? Whatever do we use? [00:18:49] Speaker A: We use stevia, because stevia's glycemic index and load are zero. We use erythritol. Again, zero. [00:19:03] Speaker B: Zero. Monk fruit, zero. Xylitol is in some of the things that we use, and it has a glycemic index of seven. Right, which is still, like one 10th that of table sugar. [00:19:19] Speaker A: We are not diabetics. We don't have type two diabetes. We weren't pre diabetic. We choose to eat that way because we don't want to be. [00:19:26] Speaker B: We really want to keep our insulin levels very low so that our body remains very sensitive to insulin and to the glucose, and it reacts, like, well, to, if something does happen to spike it, then insulin does its job exactly as it's supposed to. [00:19:48] Speaker A: Right. So what do we do? [00:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah, if. If I had to recommend something and actually talked with my mom about it the last time we were over at their house, I walked into their cabinet, I grabbed their artificial sweetener that my dad had been using, and I'm like, look at this. The number one ingredient is maltodextrin. [00:20:10] Speaker A: Get it out of your pantries. [00:20:12] Speaker B: And I'm like, look, here's. And then we start talking about the information on it. And I thought it was just because it was the brand that they had. It was an off brand. And. No, it's actually, that's just what's being used in these things, because they're so sweet, they have to add a filler, right? And that filler, like the maltodextrin, is used by athletes and runners. And because it gives you such an immediate spike of energy, it helps you recover. Like, if you. The ones that have, like, some of these packets and stuff that the runners use, it's maltodextrin, because it spikes your. It makes your blood glucose spike so fast, right. That it gives you immediate energy. [00:20:57] Speaker A: So we just encourage you to look at. Look at the. Look at the back, look at the ingredients. What is in your pantry? What is. What are you getting in the ingredients in the chocolates and the things that you're buying. Be careful about what sweeteners they're using while they're touting diabetic friendly. [00:21:19] Speaker B: I can tell you we stood in Walmart one day as we were looking for some zero sugar sweets and just got angry angrier because the sweets that were being advertised as diabetic friendly all have these artificial sweeteners in them that have glycemic indices that are higher than sugar. And so it causes a blood glucose spike greater than sugar. And it's just like, because they're zero calorie. I use in air quotes again, and which they aren't, actually, but they are not sugar. So they're being marketed to people with diabetes because they're not sugar. And that's been the talking point, right. Is like, well, they're not sugar and there's zero calorie. Therefore they're better for diabetics when in reality, look at the glycemic index of these different sweeteners because of the fillers. So, like, even on WebMD, if you look at sucralose, if it you says sucralose and then in parentheses, splenda. And that's just not true. Only 1% of splenda is sucralose. 99% of it is maltodextrin, or a combination of maltodextrin and dextrose. Dextrose actually has a higher glycemic index than maltodextrin. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, that's what I mean. You give that to your animals and get them up. Right. [00:22:53] Speaker B: Because it spikes their blood sugar so quickly. [00:22:55] Speaker A: Exactly. But there's hope. The hope is that, look, there are things that we eat. We just listed them off. [00:23:02] Speaker B: There are. [00:23:02] Speaker A: There are things that are available so that you can still have your sweets and it, and it tastes delicious and we can all read. We can read. And we can begin to understand that not everything that we're being told out there is, is all true. [00:23:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And with the artificial or non sugar sweeteners, however you want to look at it, to me, and I know to you, this is a case of good, better, best. [00:23:31] Speaker A: Sure. [00:23:32] Speaker B: So best is stop. That's best. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's best. [00:23:36] Speaker B: But, you know, and some of the, especially the carnivore doctors, they're like, look, you're not a child. You don't need sweets. [00:23:43] Speaker A: You're not two. [00:23:44] Speaker B: You're not two. You know, you don't need your candy bar. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:47] Speaker B: But we happen to enjoy it. [00:23:49] Speaker A: We do. [00:23:49] Speaker B: And so we don't choose to go with best. We choose to go with better. [00:23:54] Speaker A: Better. Right, right. [00:23:56] Speaker B: And so we choose to use sweeteners like erythritol. And some people will say, did you know that that's made by, with corn? And it's probably genetically modified corn. Since 90 whatever percent of corn in this country is genetic. [00:24:14] Speaker A: It's hard to avoid. [00:24:15] Speaker B: And we say yes because it's better. [00:24:18] Speaker A: Best. [00:24:19] Speaker B: In this case, it's better. It has a glycemic index of zero. [00:24:23] Speaker A: Right? Right. So read what's on the back of the labels. Do some research. You got Google. Find out what it really, really is. And because you might be surprised, because everything isn't always what we've been led to believe that it actually is. Shame on you, splenda. And until next time. Bye, y'all. Bye.