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

by Carolyn de la Peña

Sugar substitutes have been a part of American life since saccharin was introduced at the 1893 World's Fair. In Empty Pleasures , the first history of artificial sweeteners in the United States, Carolyn de la Pena blends popular culture with business and women's history, examining the invention, production, marketing, regulation, and consumption of sugar substitutes such as saccharin, Sucaryl, NutraSweet, and Splenda. She describes how saccharin, an accidental laboratory by-product, was transformed from a perceived adulterant into a healthy ingredient. As food producers and pharmaceutical companies worked together to create diet products, savvy women's magazine writers and editors promoted artificially sweetened foods as ideal, modern weight-loss aids, and early diet-plan entrepreneurs built menus and fortunes around pleasurable dieting made possible by artificial sweeteners.

NutraSweet, Splenda, and their predecessors have enjoyed enormous success by promising that Americans, especially women, can "have their cake and eat it too," but Empty Pleasures argues that these "sweet cheats" have fostered troubling and unsustainable eating habits and that the promises of artificial sweeteners are ultimately too good to be true.

Genres: Food, Nonfiction

279 pages, Hardcover

First published September 27, 2010

Reviews

[Lulufrances · Rating 3 out of 5]

For one of my uni subjects, I had to read and review a book connected to the history of science and I was allowed to use this one (since sweeteners are made in labs...), which I stumbled upon in the uni library.
I will not post my academic review (I don't like it) but instead give you the usual jumble of thoughts.
Of course this was a bit of a slog to plough through at times as it is very dense and very specific and while I'm mildly interested from a uni point of view, I'm not actually that much into the topic of sugar vs. sweetener, let alone its history, on a personal level.
It is interesting to see, however, how such a non-mainstream topic/food influences and is influenced by society (here very US-focused) and how everything is entwined.
Without the world wars, it sure would have looked bleak for artificial sweetener to find its way into America kitchens as people were strongly opposed to it and then again it's fun to see how in contrast, a couple of decades later, there was a huge saccharin-revolt as the FDA was going to ban it and the nation wrote thousands of letters to keep it.
All in all very good for random trivia and background info and I'm sure I'll be the star of every party, spouting my artificial sweetener knowledge...not.

[Susan Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many, I'm a long-time a consumer of artificial sweeteners. Except for baking, I've pretty much given up sugar. I habitually reach for the "pink stuff" to sweeten my coffee and tea, I sprinkle Splenda on my morning cereal, and I choose diet sodas that are sweetened with NutraSweet. Now, after reading Empty Pleasures, I understand more about the why and how of these food habits--and not just mine, but those of most American consumers. Carolyn De La Peña has given me something to think about.

Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda explores an important and completely overlooked chapter in America's food history: how and why and in less than three decades, consumers changed from craving sugar to rejecting it in favor of the seductive pleasures of artificial sweeteners. The book is a powerfully engaging and (for the most part) highly readable narrative that tells the story of Americans' growing acceptance of sweet-tasting food products and outlines the development of artificial sweeteners, their impacts on the food industry, and the cultural implications of our changing food preferences.

During the early twentieth century, sugar was promoted as a healthful food that contributed calories and energy in often nutritive-poor diets. As a result, consumers refused to accept such commercial products as soft drinks in which the cheaper new chemical, saccharin, was substituted (without their knowledge) for the more expensive sugar. What--it wasn't really sugar? Consumers felt cheated, and manufacturers were forced to return to their customers' preferred sweetener.

But in the postwar 40s and 50s, consumers' preferences began to change, spurred by women's growing interest in becoming slim and sexy. Saccharin (manufactured by Monsanto Chemical) and the new cyclamate were viewed as important sugar-substitutes, especially after new food products such as canned "diet" fruits were developed and the mass marketing of these products encouraged consumers to see them as part of a healthy "reducing" diet. When the FDA threatened to ban saccharin in 1977, consumers rose to its defense, and the age of artificial sweeteners took on a newly energetic life, even further encouraged by the "diet entrepreneurs," such as Tillie Lewis, Jean Nidetch, Weight Watchers, and Jenny Craig.

Throughout the book, De La Peña makes her thesis clear. It isn't that artificial sweeteners are "bad" for you, for there is no scientific evidence to prove their harm. But it is beginning to seem possible that we are not entirely satiated by these chemically de-calorized products and more likely to reach for another food. We have lost control of our appetites; we have become addicted to sweet-tasting chemicals; and we have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by the food industry and marketers. The real benefits of these "empty pleasures" accrue to the huge conglomerates that own these chemicals: to Monsanto, for instance, which now produces saccharin, Splenda, and NutraSweet. Artificial sweeteners, De la Peña says, have proved to be a superb, low-cost way "to move products through consumers by removing barriers to capacity." That is, if we don't have to count the calories in what we consume (and therefore risk additional pounds), we can eat as much as we want--although of course we have to buy it first. De la Peña: "The ability of the low-calorie market to expand the total market for American foods is surely proof of the ingenuity of capitalism, whether you admire or decry the results."

Perhaps even more importantly, artificial sweeteners teach us that it is indeed possible to get something for nothing, a strongly negative lesson for a high-consuming society. They are another encouragement for us to keep thoughtlessly, mindlessly stuffing ourselves with things that have no real or lasting or significant value. In accepting the false promise of the artificial sweetener industry, we have also accepted the false idea of the Free Lunch: we can consume as much as we want of anything we choose and never have to pay the price. The real price.

This book will not help you decide whether to switch from "pink" to "blue" or go back to sugar. Instead, Empty Pleasures is designed to help you understand the history and development of these sweet chemical products, the processed foods that are based on them, and the industries and corporations that have profited by exploiting our cravings for sweets. But in the end and all things considered, De La Peña concludes that artificial sweeteners are unhealthy for us as a society, for they have blurred the distinction between food and "neutraceuticals" and have made it nearly impossible for us to observe, evaluate, and control our appetites.

Strongly recommended for general readers who are interested in changes in the American diet and in their own food choices and for collections that focus on the history of industrial food.

This review originally appeared at www.StoryCircleBookReviews.org: http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org...

[OvercommuniKate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yay! I'm finally done! This is a very good book, but it took me 85 days to read.

Empty Pleasures is a great micro-history of artificial sweetener, going from the 1880s to 2010s. It ends before erythritol popularity but does touch on the shifting of sentiments that got us to where we are today.

[Erin Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history on cyclamates, saccharine, asparatime, and the surcalose derivative, Splenda.

[Courtney]

I don't really feel like I can properly rate this book because I skipped around a lot. Learned a few interesting facts about saccharin along the way, and the sections that I read were easy to understand.