RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Sugar Association lawyers want to tour Splenda plant Are the assertions that the most popular artificial sweetener Splenda is made from sugar false? That's what lawyers for the Sugar Association say they want to prove. According to an article which appeared in the July 5 edition of the Mobile Press Register, the attorneys, who are pitted in a battle with McNeil Nutritionals LLC, want to tour the McIntosh Splenda plant operated by London based Tate & Lyle. A lawsuit filed by the Sugar Association against McNeil alleges the company's slogan "Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar" is misleading. A hearing concerning the request is scheduled for August in a Mobile federal court. The lawsuit trial is scheduled to take place in a California federal court this coming January. The aim of the Sugar Association's lawyers is to be allowed to tour the McIntosh plant and video tape the manufacture of Sucralose, which is the sweetening ingredient used to make Splenda. Their request has been denied and McNeil has filed a counter lawsuit against the Sugar Association claiming a smear campaign has been waged against them. McNeil lawyers contend that the association's Web site www.truthaboutsplenda. com provides false information. According to the Splenda Web site www.splenda.com, the Sucralose is made during "a patented multi-step process that starts with cane sugar (sucrose). Three hydroxyl groups on the sugar molecule are replaced by three chlorine atoms. The addition of chlorine converts sucrose to sucralose, resulting in a sweetener with a high quality sweet taste and which is also exceptionally stable." On its own Web site (www.truthaboutsplenda. com) the Sugar Association states the following: "The manufacturer (McNeil's parent company Johnson & Johnson) has patented several chemical processes for making the chlorinated chemical compound it calls sucralose. The patent literature illustrates that sucralose can be chemically manufactured from starting materials that do not require natural sugar. In one patent, for example, the manufacturer constructs sucralose from raffinose, a complex carbohydrate, a trisaccharide composed of galactose, fructose, and glucose, by substituting atoms of chlorine for hydroxyl groups in raffinose. Raffinose is a molecule found naturally in beans, onions and other plants, but unlike natural sucrose, it has very little taste. In another patented process three atoms of chlorine are substituted for three hydroxyl groups in sucrose. The end product of both of these manufacturing processes is a chlorocarbon chemical called sucralose. Each molecule of sucralose contains three atoms of chlorine which makes it 600 times sweeter than a natural molecule of sugar which contains no chlorine. Splenda has its own artificial taste which is due to this chlorinated compound."
A statement released to The South Alabamian by Tate & Lyle's London office, Tuesday, stated, "The request (to tour the McIntosh plant) comes as part of a lawsuit that involves the Sugar Association and McNeil Nutritionals. We can't comment on ongoing legal activity - particularly as we are not party to the lawsuit. Understandably, protection of our proprietary manufacturing know-how is commercially sensitive and access to our manufacturing plants, especially by competitors, is therefore restricted."
|
for larger version       |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
