Splenda Water…or Just One More Reason to Drink Beer
The bloggers at Locallectual spend a lot of time informing us of food scares around the world and I thought this post from 60-Second Science was worth mentioning. And, thanks to EB for sharing it with me on Google Reader. (Coming up on My Virtual Life...)
Smitha Ramakrishna, a 17-year old senior at Corona del Sol High School in Chandler, AZ and one of 40 finalists in the 2009 Intel Science Talent Search, started an organization called Arizona Water Activists Karing for the Environment (AWAKE) because “We believe that it is inexcusable to waste water in the arid Arizona desert. We created these project goals: spread awareness about water conservation, sanitation, and provide access to potable water.” She was inspired after a trip to India when she was 12 and realized how privileged she was to have clean water every day. (Yeah. Amazing--12 years old.)
This work led her curiosity to a lab at Arizona State University where she began testing sucralose. She found that the substance was not broken down by traditional sewage treatment methods and the methods that do break it down are not common in regular plants. So it just ends up floating around with nowhere to go.
Ramakrishna is still studying what this could mean for long-term eco-health but has strong leads that it might be poisoning some fish that she will continue to research.
Splenda is popular because it has no calories but still tastes sweet ("tastes like sugar cause it's made from sugar"). But that’s only because the body can’t break it down and it just ends up as waste. Which then ends up in the water.
This is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supply. What’s next?
Smitha Ramakrishna, a 17-year old senior at Corona del Sol High School in Chandler, AZ and one of 40 finalists in the 2009 Intel Science Talent Search, started an organization called Arizona Water Activists Karing for the Environment (AWAKE) because “We believe that it is inexcusable to waste water in the arid Arizona desert. We created these project goals: spread awareness about water conservation, sanitation, and provide access to potable water.” She was inspired after a trip to India when she was 12 and realized how privileged she was to have clean water every day. (Yeah. Amazing--12 years old.)
This work led her curiosity to a lab at Arizona State University where she began testing sucralose. She found that the substance was not broken down by traditional sewage treatment methods and the methods that do break it down are not common in regular plants. So it just ends up floating around with nowhere to go.
Ramakrishna is still studying what this could mean for long-term eco-health but has strong leads that it might be poisoning some fish that she will continue to research.
Splenda is popular because it has no calories but still tastes sweet ("tastes like sugar cause it's made from sugar"). But that’s only because the body can’t break it down and it just ends up as waste. Which then ends up in the water.
This is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supply. What’s next?
Labels: musings
posted by i.d.a. at
3/13/2009
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