I hate it, but I love it.

That is such a Tony Horton-ism. But I am actually not talknig about P90X today, I am talking about Splenda, or sucrolose. I love it. I love sugar, but I think I might love splenda more. It is 98% as yummy as sugar and has no calories.

I have been using Splenda for quite some time now and I the thought has crossed my mind on more than one occasion, "I bet this is really bad for me." I mean c'mon, is anything that tastes this good really supposed to be a guilt-free pleasure? No way. But, ignorance was bliss. Until I bought a book at the airport during my snow delay last week. Oh boy, here it comes:

"A few of the side effects of sucrolose in animal studies include shrunken thymus glands, enlarged liver and kidneys, atrophy of the lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus, reduced growth rate, decreased red blood cell count, hyperplasia of the pelvis, aborted pregnancy, decreased fetal body weights and placental weights, and diarrhea."

Say it ain't so.  Those are pretty extreme side effects and who knows what kind of study this was but to make matters worse the article went on to list the more common side effects including "Bloating, abdominal pain, gas, nausea, blurry vision, headaches, frquent need to urinate at night...." and on and on.

All the more reason to avoid eating anything that comes in a package. My morning coffee is doomed - have you read the ingredient list on the bottle of creamer: