Splenda Look-A-Likes


Do you remember Altern - Walmart's Splenda brand - cheaper than Splenda? This same company, Heartland Sweeteners, is making Nevella (A Splenda knockoff), which comprises the granular form for baking and the small packets for sweetening beverages. No doubt its prices will be quite competitive with Splenda Granular. As I don't live in the States, you'll be able to verify this at the stores. Apparently, the Dollar Stores and Meijer's carry this brand. Nevella also contains a probiotic. Can you imagine? Probiotics are useful (found in yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, etc.) and are great for keeping the digestive tract healthy.

They also have a Nevella brand without probiotics (as in the above picture). I was looking at the nutritional analysis of the granular for baking and was disappointed to see they stated less than 1 gram carbohydrate per tsp. That is less than useful information for carb counters. At least Splenda Granular states 0.5 grams per tsp. One can plug that into a nutritional program and work with that, or one can manually add up the carbohydrates. I think that is a big drawback, however, it does not surprise me at all. Companies often fudge things - if it is less than one gram for instance (could be 0.9 grams) of trans fats, the food product will say 0 grams of trans fats per serving. That is hardly true if one has more than the minimum serving, which is usually ridiculous anyway! It's almost as if they think they can fool us. It's like the Splenda Granular box saying it is a 0 calorie sweetener. That's a lie, unfortunately, and at best, it is fudging things, because they're allowed to, according to the FDA rules. I, for one, don't appreciate that kind of fudging of the numbers.

Another reason this company is not sensitive to the needs of low-carbers, is that it is still stuck in the low-fat world, same as Johnson and Johnson, the company that distributes Splenda. Taking one look at the recipes told me that! What a shame! They should address more than the regular crowd, besides a product like Splenda and the look-a-likes are great for people with diabetes - why leave them out of the target market? Well, possibly because people with diabetes are told they can eat anything as long as they use medication and/or insulin to keep their blood sugars more normal. That's really a band aid treatment in my opinion. Each time the blood sugar goes out of whack, it causes a little damage and then the band aid is needed afterwards. How about one prevents the situation in the first place with a low-carb diet? I'm getting off track here, and going off on a tangent. To me, the biggest oxymoron in the low-calorie sweetener world is combining Splenda and sugar - wow, now why in the world would I buy that? In any case, if I did want that, it would be cheaper to combine the two in my own kitchen!

Funny world we live in, hey?! Not funny, haha, but funny as in strange/weird!

Happy Low-Carbing
Jennifer