image by: Allen

HWN Suggests

Cyclamate, an Artificial Sweetener for the Rest of the World

If you're wondering why we don't have cyclamate these days, you can thank the Sugar Association, an industry group formed in 1943 to protect sugar's image from government rationing programs.

Cyclamate cost 90% less than sugar and sweetened just as well. What to do if you're the sugar industry? Form the International Sugar Research Foundation and fund shady research looking to cast cyclamate as the bad guy... after burning through about $500,000 in the 70's ($4 million in today's money) they discovered cyclamate could cause bladder cancer in rats. This was followed promptly by a ban by the FDA.

read full article

Articles of Interest

Cyclamates – a guide to artificial sweeteners

‘God looks after damn fools, children and chemists’, according to Dr Michael Sveda who discovered the sweetener cyclamate during a smoking break. The question is whether God watches over sweeteners as well. Cyclamates are allowed in the EU but completely banned in its homeland USA since 1970.

Side Effects of Sodium Cyclamate

The goal to reduce your sugar intake is a noble one, and there are other sweeteners you can turn to that don't have the documented downsides of sodium cyclamate.

The Bitter Truth About a Sweetener Scare

The recent death of Michael Sveda, the chemist who discovered cyclamates, an artificial sweetener, and worked on other industrial chemicals including DDT, brought me back to the pivotal day in my professional career.

The rise and fall of Tab – after surviving the sweetener scares, the iconic diet soda gets canned

In 1969, the Food and Drug Administration banned the sweetener cyclamate after lab studies indicated that large doses of the sweetener led to bladder cancer in animals. While Tab contained two artificial sweeteners – saccharin and cyclamate – cyclamate was the more important of the two. Saccharin is 300 to 400 times sweeter than sugar, but in high concentrations it gives products a bitter, metallic aftertaste. However, when it’s combined with cyclamate, the bitterness goes away. After the cyclamate ban, Tab was forced to reformulate and ended up deciding to use saccharine as its primary sweetener.

The Sweetener Book

Cyclamate was removed from the United States market in 1969 because of a study in which rats consuming large quantities of a cyclamate-saccharin blend developed bladder tumors. Current evidence indicates that cyclamate is not carcinogenic. It is still banned in the United States, but approved in much of the world.

What Happens When Chemists Don't Wash Their Hands

One day in the lab, he reached up to brush a piece of tobacco off his lips and tasted something sweet. Like Fahlberg, he decided the way to figure out what it was, was to taste every beaker he'd been working with until he found the one that was sweet. That was cyclamate. But unlike Fahlberg's saccharine, you can't stir any cyclamate into your coffee today. The FDA would ban its use in 1969 after it caused cancer in rats.

What is Sodium Cyclamate (E952) in food and Why Banned in the US?

Sodium cyclamate, the second oldest artificial sweetener, which has the least sweetness – about 30 times sweeter than sucrose and with the European food additive number E952(ii). This non-caloric sweetener can be used as a sugar substitute to reduce calorie and sugar intake in table-top sweeteners, soft drinks, baked goods, confections, and preserves. It has been banned for human consumption in the USA due to the potential side effects of cancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 1970.

Resources

Cyclamate

Cyclamate is a low calorie sweetener (also known as an “intense sweetener”) that is 30 times sweeter than table sugar. It is soluble in liquids and because it is stable in heat and cold, it has a long shelf life. Discovered in 1937, cyclamate is approved for use in foods and beverages in more than 100 countries worldwide, including Canada, Australia and Europe. Although cyclamate is not currently permitted in the United States, a petition for cyclamate's reapproval in the U.S. has been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).