Many people have a preference for a specific sweetener without realizing that numerous products now contain combinations of nutritive and/or nonnutritive sweeteners. The three key advantages for these sweetener blends are:
- Taste: The major limitation to the use of saccharin is its bitter aftertaste. Combining saccharin with other sweeteners helps alleviate this problem.
- Cost: Using combinations of nonnutritive sweeteners can result in a sweeter taste with less sweeteners, saving companies money.
- Flexibility: The ability to combine nonnutritive and nutritive sweeteners can offer people low-calorie choices, along with the no calorie ones.
The blending of sweeteners is presenting a whole new set of problems. Research has not been done, and is not required to be done, on combinations of sweeteners. There is no way to know what happens to the chemicals once they are combined in the products or how they are processed in our bodies in that combination. This is an unnecessary risk that is being taken. The proper procedure would be to require thorough, credible studies on the safety of these combinations before allowing them into our food and medicine. While it would take time and money to conduct these tests, it's clearly a case where it's better to be safe than sorry.