I keep hearing people blaming Splenda for intestinal ugliness after eating a low-carb/calorie item. Before pinning the blame on Splenda, check the ingredients label. About the only products that have Splenda as the only sweetner are diet-sodas. Everything else you see on the market (the cookies, ice creams, meal-replacement bars, candies) will have a sugar-alcohol (no actual alcohol, this is an organic chem nomencalture) in the ingredients list. And those babies are well known for causing all sorts of gastro-intestinal ugliness.
Some people can tolerate all the sugar-alcohols. Some can handle only some of the sugar-alcohols, and some can't handle any of them. I can deal with xylitol and sorbitol, but mannitol and maltitol (one of the very popular sugar-alcohols) have to be dealt with in really small doses, and lactitol, I might as well be main-lining phenolphthalein instead. Serious unhappiness. Too bad, since lactitol tends to be used in sugar-free/low carb chocolates. A diabetic friend can chow down on lactitol based candies and not miss a step.
It's definitely a YMMV deal.
But before you cast aspersions on Splenda, make sure it's not one of the sugar-alcohols that's causing the problems.
Posted by lsefton at July 10, 2004 08:21 PM