E.n.e.a

heck-yeah-old-tech:

Superose artificial sweetener. Approved by Parents, McCall’s, and Good Housekeeping — at the time, that is.
First produced in 1878, we figured out that saccharin causes cancer in lab rats in the 1970’s and put restrictions and labels on it. It never went off the market, though as a sweetener in “low calorie/diet” foods it fell out of favor, and Sweet’N Low pink packets are still on every restaurant table next to the regular white sugar packets (though we now see blue Equal and yellow Splenda packets alongside them). Other alternatives to sugar were developed and life went on. But then in 2001, the FDA changed its minds about the safety of sodium saccharide and in 2010 the EPA said it was safe for human consumption.
It was a weird time in the late 70’s and early 80’s for flavor because saccharin was said to be carcinagenic and the new upstart of the mid-80s, aspartame, has an unpleasant aftertaste (or to me) and causes problems with certain sensitive people. [I’m one of them. In small doses it gives me a headache, in larger doses it contracts my diaphragm. But that’s still minor compared to the effects on people born with phenylketonuria, who have enough problems as it is without Nutrasweet spurring their neurological damage on.] The next sweetener on the market in the 1990’s was sucralose, which has not shown any adverse health effects though I have to say Splenda does have an odd aftertaste. In recent times there has been increasing emphasis on natural sweeteners such as stevia leaves and agave nectar, with good ol’ fashioned honey always in the background. Saccharin as I remember it, in the drip bottles that got overused on my cornflakes, was sweeter than sugar though just slightly plastic-ish and didn’t have an aftertaste.
Personal opinion: I’m not sure I’d want to go back to this sweetener being unlabeled (as it is today), I don’t trust it. Trivia: My great-grandmother clipped a newspaper recipe for saccharin pickles and pasted it in her 1920 diary.
Good Housekeeping — August 1963

Superose artificial sweetener. Approved by Parents, McCall’s, and Good Housekeeping — at the time, that is.

First produced in 1878, we figured out that saccharin causes cancer in lab rats in the 1970’s and put restrictions and labels on it. It never went off the market, though as a sweetener in “low calorie/diet” foods it fell out of favor, and Sweet’N Low pink packets are still on every restaurant table next to the regular white sugar packets (though we now see blue Equal and yellow Splenda packets alongside them). Other alternatives to sugar were developed and life went on. But then in 2001, the FDA changed its minds about the safety of sodium saccharide and in 2010 the EPA said it was safe for human consumption.

It was a weird time in the late 70’s and early 80’s for flavor because saccharin was said to be carcinagenic and the new upstart of the mid-80s, aspartame, has an unpleasant aftertaste (or to me) and causes problems with certain sensitive people. [I’m one of them. In small doses it gives me a headache, in larger doses it contracts my diaphragm. But that’s still minor compared to the effects on people born with phenylketonuria, who have enough problems as it is without Nutrasweet spurring their neurological damage on.] The next sweetener on the market in the 1990’s was sucralose, which has not shown any adverse health effects though I have to say Splenda does have an odd aftertaste. In recent times there has been increasing emphasis on natural sweeteners such as stevia leaves and agave nectar, with good ol’ fashioned honey always in the background. Saccharin as I remember it, in the drip bottles that got overused on my cornflakes, was sweeter than sugar though just slightly plastic-ish and didn’t have an aftertaste.

Personal opinion: I’m not sure I’d want to go back to this sweetener being unlabeled (as it is today), I don’t trust it. Trivia: My great-grandmother clipped a newspaper recipe for saccharin pickles and pasted it in her 1920 diary.

Good Housekeeping — August 1963