Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda - Softcover

Carolyn De La Peña

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807872741 ISBN 13: 9780807872741

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012

Synopsis

Sugar substitutes have been a part of American life since saccharin was introduced at the 1893 World's Fair. In Empty Pleasures, the first history of artificial sweeteners in the United States, Carolyn de la Pena blends popular culture with business and women's history, examining the invention, production, marketing, regulation, and consumption of sugar substitutes such as saccharin, Sucaryl, NutraSweet, and Splenda. She describes how saccharin, an accidental laboratory by-product, was transformed from a perceived adulterant into a healthy ingredient. As food producers and pharmaceutical companies worked together to create diet products, savvy women's magazine writers and editors promoted artificially sweetened foods as ideal, modern weight-loss aids, and early diet-plan entrepreneurs built menus and fortunes around pleasurable dieting made possible by artificial sweeteners.

NutraSweet, Splenda, and their predecessors have enjoyed enormous success by promising that Americans, especially women, can "have their cake and eat it too," but Empty Pleasures argues that these "sweet cheats" have fostered troubling and unsustainable eating habits and that the promises of artificial sweeteners are ultimately too good to be true.

About this title

Book Description:

" Empty Pleasures provides a fascinating window into the complex history of artificial sweeteners in the United States, blending business history with discussions about how these products actually worked within the lives of consumers. An in-depth, nuanced study."--Amy Farrell, author of Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism

From the Inside Flap:

In Empty Pleasures, the first history of artificial sweeteners in the United States, Carolyn de la Pena blends popular culture with business and women's history, shedding light on the invention, production, marketing, regulation, and consumption of sugar substitutes such as saccharin, Sucaryl, NutraSweet, and Splenda. These companies have enjoyed enormous success by promising that Americans, can "have their cake and eat it too," but Empty Pleasures argues both that these "sweet cheats" have fostered troubling and unsustainable eating habits and are ultimately too good to be true.

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0807872741
• ISBN 13: 9780807872741
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296