Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda

292 Pages·2010·2.9 MB·English

by  Carolyn de la Pena

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This volume was published with the assistance of the Greensboro
Women’s Fund of the University of North Carolina Press.
Founding Contributors: Linda Arnold Carlisle, Sally Schindel
Cone, Anne Faircloth, Bonnie McElveen Hunter, Linda Bullard
Jennings, Janice J. Kerley (in honor of Margaret Supplee Smith),
Nancy Rouzer May, and Betty Hughes Nichols.
©2010 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved. Designed by Courtney Leigh Baker and set
in Merlo and Unsprit by Rebecca Evans. Manufactured in the
United States of America. The paper in this book meets the
guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources. The University of North Carolina Press has
been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Peña, Carolyn Thomas de la.
Empty pleasures: the story of artifi cial sweeteners from
saccharin to Splenda / by Carolyn de la Peña.—1st ed.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8078-3409-1 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Nonnutritive sweeteners—History. i. Title.
tp422.p46 2010 664(cid:118).5—dc22 2010006638
14 13 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1
FOR CATHERINE VADE BON COEUR
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Contents
Introduction
1
chapter one. False Scarlet
Healthful Sugar vs. Adulterous Saccharin in the Early Twentieth Century
13
chapter two. Alchemic Ally
Women’s Creativity and Control in Saccharin and Cyclamates
39
chapter three. Diet Men
The Food- Pharma Origins of Artifi cially Sweetened Products
65
chapter four. Prosperity Stomachs and Prosperous Women
Diet Entrepreneurs
105
chapter five. Saccharin Rebels
The Right to Risky Pleasure in 1977
141
chapter six. Nutra Sweet Nation
Profi t, Peril, and the Promise of a Free Lunch
177
conclusion
Splenda, Sugar, and What Mother Nature Intended
219
Notes
229
Bibliography
257
Acknowledgments
269
Index
273
Illustrations
fig. 1.1 Saccharin brochure, 1893
17
fig. 1.2 Clicquot Club Ginger Ale advertisement
23
fig. 1.3 Domino Sugar advertisement
31
fig. 1.4 “The Hold- Up in the Kitchen”
33
fig. 2.1 Saccharin containers
45
fig. 2.2 Saccharin sparrow
47
fig. 2.3 “Two- fi ngered” sweetening
49
fig. 2.4 Sucaryl “No thanks!”
49
fig. 3.1 Abbott Laboratories “tree” mural
68
fig. 3.2 Illustration from Food Additives pamphlet
85