How safe is Splenda sweetener?
Dear Dr. Rabin: I’ve got a friend who makes the same joke every time we go out to breakfast. When the coffee is poured, he offers a sugar packet, and a pink and a blue sweetener packet and asks, “Diabetes, cancer or memory loss?” I thought the dumb joke would finally end when I started using the new yellow Splenda packet, but now he’s started to add “mystery disease” to his choices. I’ve read your column long enough to know you will tell me to eat with someone else, but aside from that, what’s he talking about? —Sue Au contraire. I encourage you to spend more time with him; in fact, both lunch and dinner would be ideal. Anyone who can successfully run a good joke into the ground has my greatest respect. I can only aspire to do likewise in my weekly column, having taken every sideways opportunity to squeeze Star Jones into the unending variations of my alternative medicine opinions. A man like yours—he’s definitely a keeper. Now about the little yellow packet: Sucralose, the sweet compo
