The Sugar Industry Attacks Splenda

Lynne Kiesling

Doug Bandow wrote a nice column on the sugar industry’s attack on Splenda last week:

You can never get enough from consumers and taxpayers. That apparently is the sugar industry’s motto. Collect subsidies. Ban trade. Outlaw your competitors. Let the American people pay.

I could go on for days about the deep and broad reasons to criticize the U.S. sugar industry, and the pragmatic and moral reasons why the U.S. federal subsidies of the sugar industry are an appalling travesty that make neither economic nor environmental sense. But I won’t. Doug’s column adds another data point to the mounting evidence of the rent-seeking venality in the sugar industry. They are suing the maker of Splenda for false advertising, saying that in fact Splenda is not made from sugar.

But it is. It’s sucrose with three added chlorines (and I think some funky branch amino acid being broken) to keep the GI system from recognizing it and absorbing it. The science is pretty clear.

Doug’s column also points out the great value that many people have enjoyed from the existence of Splenda. As Courtney Knapp observed,

I already despise the Sugar Industry for its taxes, quotes, and subsidies and corresponding above world market prices and this just adds fuel to my fire. As someone who involuntarily doesn?t eat sugar, Splenda has been a godsend. It?s tougher to bake with, impossible to make hot chocolate, here are recipes you can?t substitute one-for-one, and it may take a few tries before your cookies turn out right. All in all, I think Splenda is a fantastic alternative for those who can?t eat sugar.

I, too, am someone who involuntarily does not eat sugar. The sugar industry is behaving like a bunch of retrograde rent-seekers, and we’re supposed to pay for their bounty. I can’t say what I would like in response to that in a public forum.