That Splenda you're drinking will be in our water supply for awhile...

[JoshLowry]

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=that-splenda-youre-drinking-will-be-2009-03-09

WASHINGTON, D.C.—People like sucralose—the artificial sweetener marketed as Splenda (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=artificial-sweeteners-confound-the-brain)—because the human body can’t break it down and use it. That means the substance has almost no calories and makes it a popular ingredient in everything from cookies to diet sodas (http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=now-heres-a-shocker-diet-coke-plus-2008-12-24). Unfortunately, it turns out that modern wastewater treatment methods (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=shit-enables-serious-sanitation-discussion) don’t break down Splenda either.

[torchbearer]

kind of negates the threat.
Body can't absorb it, so it doesn't matter if half the content of water was sucralose.

[Danke]

So wastewater's taste should be improving?

[Ninja Homer]

kind of negates the threat.
Body can't absorb it, so it doesn't matter if half the content of water was sucralose.

Not so:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose
"The bulk of sucralose ingested does not leave the gastrointestinal tract and is directly excreted in the feces while 11-27% of it is absorbed.[2] The amount that is absorbed from the GI tract is largely removed from the blood stream by the kidneys and eliminated in the urine with 20-30% of the absorbed sucralose being metabolized.[2]"

[DamianTV]

If they really wanted an artificial sweetener that had zero calories, they should look at ways to synthesize leftulose at a much more cost effective rate. Leftulose is basically nothing more than the exact same chemical structure as sugar, and anyone that knows anything about chemistry should agree with me on this, but sugar and ALL crystals are only what is called RIGHT HANDED. Not as in writing with ones right hand, but the patterns portrayed do not literally occur in the opposite direction naturally. So leftulose will have the same exact taste as sugar, however, because its a left handed non naturally occuring substance, it should not be able to chemically bond with anything in the human body, effectively having the caloric value of air.

Hmm, Splenda in my water supply, explains my recent rash of bad headaches.

[constituent]

^ isomers.

[zach]

at least stevia isn't as much as a criminal as it used to be. :rolleyes:

[akihabro]

I've never trusted none of that crap, I've just stuck to old fashioned sugar.

[sheepmoney]

There's a list of what additives are safe and unsafe here:
http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm