Splenda Essentials: Adding a Little Vitamin to Your Sweetener

I’ll be totally honest: I rarely add artificial sweeteners to my food. I typically use a little bit of real sugar when supplementing sweetness. Really, I can only think of a handful of items I add sugar to (besides when cooking and baking). Grapefruit, sometimes. Strawberries, on occasion. Cheerios, almost always. Coffee, when using an unflavored creamer. That’s it.

While Splenda’s been around for more than a decade, I’d never actually tried it. But the company has introduced Splenda Essentials, which add fun little nutritional bonuses to the no-calorie sweetener. One version has B vitamins, the antioxidant version has Vitamins E and C, and another has 1 gram of fiber in each pack. I tried the B vitamin and antioxidant versions, and must say that I was quite pleased with the taste. While they don’t taste exactly like sugar, they had the sweetness I was looking for and didn’t have a weird aftertaste. And really, added vitamins (20 percent of your daily value depending on your sweet selection) and added fiber in sugar? If you even occasionally add sugar or sweetener to your foods, this is a way to at least make it more beneficial to your—and your kids’—bods.

Are you a no-cal sweetener user or a sugar purist? Or do you avoid sweeteners of all kinds? —Erin