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"Robert A. Fink, M. D." wrote: > > Sucralose is sucrose where the hydroxyl groups have been replaced > by > chlorine molecules. (but dont ask me what that means) > > And what does this do to the sugar? Why are we avoiding sugar in the > first place? I guess that I have lost the thread. Sugar is avoided by many people because it is considered to be fattening and somewhat toxic of course for diabetics. Some go so far as to claim that refined sugar is just bad. Sugar is probably the purest chemical available and is obtained mainly from sugar cane in tropical or semi tropical conditions although in some Western countries it is obtained from the beet. The way I understand from my old organic chem, is that sucrose is a disaccharide made up of two different hexoses (sugars containing six carbons in the skeleton) glucose and fructose. Glucose is the bad actor in diabetes and fructose is much easier to tolerate. Most of the functional groups attached to the carbon skeleton are OH's (hydroxyl which when attached to a methyl group for instance makes it methanol), so that sucrose is full of these hydroxyls which makes these hydrophilic or water soluble. Sucralose is then synthesized from sucrose by carefully replacing only three of them with chlorine groups. There are still plenty of hydroxyls to presumably maintain some of the properties like taste and solubility. But as I said, I will try to verify all that stuff later. And this is my chemistry lesson for today, boys and girls. Michel PS I am still using aspartame for whatever I consume and as far as I can see I do not expect to switch.