Who invented equal sweetener

Presweetened products, often containing inexpensive saccharin—the output of an increasingly large food-processing industry—alarmed nutritionists, regulators, and health officials. While saccharin consumption increased, the debate over its safety was never truly settled. Science, to the public, had issued too many contradictory or inconclusive opinions, so when the decision about saccharin fell to individuals, most responded to their desire for a no-consequences sweetener. Others, like Harvey Washington Wiley before them, were skeptical.

Avis DeVoto, a friend of Julia Child and an editor at Alfred Knopf, remained unimpressed by saccharin, especially by its increasing use in cookbooks. Partly in response to growing unease among regulators and the public, Congress passed the Food Additives Amendment in In preparing its legislation Congress heard testimony from members of the scientific community.

For the first time in connection with food additives, scientists used the c-word: cancer. Representative James J. Delaney, a Democrat from New York, pushed hard for the addition of language specifically outlawing carcinogens. Seemingly uncontroversial at the time—who would support adding cancer-causing agents to food? Legislators had disastrously underestimated the data necessary to definitively declare a substance carcinogenic. The two chemicals balanced each other, with cyclamate blunting the bitter aftertaste of saccharin.

Meanwhile, the use of artificial sweeteners continued to increase among weight-conscious consumers. In Constantin Fahlberg had declared saccharin harmless because he suffered no adverse effects 24 hours after taking a single dose. But post—World War II health science had begun investigating subtler, long-term effects.

Research methodology had changed accordingly: studies observed a longer span of time, for example, and tried to control for a wider range of variables. Researchers shifted away from unstructured human testing toward animal testing that included control groups. Such research produced more and better data but increased complexity. In the late s three trends converged: increasing government regulation in the food-processing industry, the rise of artificial sweeteners, and the growing complexity and sophistication of health science.

One of the first results of this convergence was the ban on cyclamate. Two studies linked the chemical to bladder cancer. That left only one artificial sweetener on the market: saccharin. In oncologists at the University of Wisconsin Medical School published the results of a clinical study showing a higher instance of bladder cancer among rats who consumed saccharin daily.

Large chemical companies—Monsanto, Sherwin-Williams, and Lakeway Chemicals—began assembling their own evidence to oppose prohibition. Soda companies expected a painful financial hit, as did makers of diet food. But they also knew the process could take years, as the FDA ordered new tests, analyzed the data, and—crucially—responded to public and political pressure. By a saccharin ban looked likely. Marvin Eisenstadt, the president of the company, appeared on television and radio to argue his case.

He denied the scientific validity of animal testing and declared access to saccharin a consumer right. He helped draft a two-page ad from the Calorie Control Council, the industry group he headed. Write or call your congressman today and let him know how you feel about a ban on saccharin. In the week after the saccharin ban went into effect in , Congress received more than a million letters.

Marvin Eisenstadt and other public relations—savvy producers had turned the saccharin debate into a PR operation, and the public had responded. That transformation involves creating the capacity to manufacture and distribute sweeteners, not just bulk ingredients.

Petray says NutraSweet has tackled both issues through a partnership with Domino Foods, a major sugar refiner and distributor. Domino and NutraSweet will split both profits and costs stemming from the new product.

NutraSweet's first sweetener is an aspartame product currently available in some Wal-Mart Supercenters, mostly on the East Coast. A national rollout is slated for October. The company plans to launch saccharin-based and natural sweeteners next year.

The overall saccharin sweetener market "isn't really going anywhere," said Mike Richardson, a food industry analyst at the Freedonia Group. But the natural sweetener field, now only in a nascent stage, "has enormous potential," he said. Fears of health risks have long dogged artificial sweeteners. Hence a no-calorie sweetener made from natural ingredients -- and one that tastes good -- could prove very popular. Merisant already has a natural sweetener in the market, though like others in its niche it is considerably more expensive than artificial sweeteners.

As the price comes down, natural diet sweeteners will become more attractive to consumers, Richardson said. The person who got in his way was President Theodore Roosevelt, who was on a weight-loss regimen that included a dose of saccharin prescribed by his doctor.

The sweetener was eventually banned in , but the decision was reversed during World War I, when sugar rations necessitated the use of saccharin as a substitute. Once the war was over, people continued to enjoy the calorie-free sweetener. The introduction of a sweetener called cyclamate to the American market coincided with the diet soda boom of the s. The substance was discovered in when a University of Illinois grad student working on a fever-reducing drug tasted something sweet on his finger during a smoke break.

Yes, this really is how science works sometimes. By , Americans were consuming more than 17 million pounds of the stuff each year. It took more than a decade for the next big artificial sweetener to pick up where cyclamate left off.

In another accidental discovery, James Schlatter, a research chemist for G. The researcher survived, and in so doing paved the way to a product that is about times sweeter than sugar. Unlike the artificial sweeteners that came before it, sucralose is partially metabolized by the body, which means it does deliver calories. Thus Splenda has replaced NutraSweet as the most widely consumed sugar substitute on the market…for now. The search for the next big artificial sweetener is already on, including a promising compound called neotame.

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