Bring Back Cyclamate!

Children of the late 60s had a shared habit that was wrested from them by our oh-so-protective government. We used to take packets of cyclamate-sweetened Kool-Aid or Funny Face and dipped. A quick lick of a finger, a plunge into the powdery goodness, and a satisfying burst of enjoyment as we placed our flavor-laden fingers into our mouths (hey, we were kids, this is as orgasmic as life got). Only a fraction of these packets ever really got made as pitchers of thirst-quenching goodness. Another special taste of the 60s was Fresca. A cyclamate-sweetened soft drink that was bolder than 7-up but more civilized than Mountain Dew.

And then, in the fall of 1969, it was gone. The FDA decreed that since there was the slightest possibility that rats could develop bladder tumors if they ingested the human equivalent of 350 cans of sodas a day (that’s about 124 liters or 33 gallons), that this marvelous mix had to be banned. This was a result of the Delaney Amendment which states: “the Secretary of the Food and Drug Administration shall not approve for use in food any chemical additive found to induce cancer in man, or, after tests, found to induce cancer in animals.” This was an early example of a Zero-Tolerance Law having too broad a reach. It was deemed that ANY chance of cancer, regardless of the amount of necessary exposure, was reason enough to ban an additive. So, cyclamate disappeared from the shelves and sugar-free sweetening has never recovered.

It’s since been shown that cyclamate is about as safe (or safer) than just about anything we add to our foods. There is no reason to keep the substance banned. Fifty-five other countries (including former banners Canada and the UK) deem it safe. I think the US needs to step up to the plate and do the same.

In age when we are thinking about a “sugar tax” on soft drinks to combat obesity, I think we need to rethink where we are. Though I was a kid, I was never taken aback with the taste of cyclamate like I have been with other artificial sweeteners. Apparently the additive also causes few side-effects in general. It’s inexpensive and is heat tolerant. If it can substitute for sugar as well as I remember it doing, then wouldn’t it be better to remove the ban? Hmmm?

You want to battle soft drink induced obesity? In addition to removing the ban on cyclamate, tax the “naturally” sweetened soft drinks that use high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as a sweetener instead of sugar. Soft drinks have been around for a long time, but I don’t remember them being a major problem until the companies ditched sugar in favor of the cheaper-for-them HFCS. To this day, Cokes using HFSC instead of sugar taste wrong.

Yes, I know that HFCS gets blamed for a lot of ills, some of it probably not deserved. But, in spite of the self-serving PSAs they’ve put out, there is a noticeable correlation to the use of HFCS in drinks and food to the increased incidence of obesity. I’m just sayin’.

But that aside… we do need to have cyclamate back. It was GREAT! Why not add another weapon to the arsenal of fighting fat? It can’t be any worse than what we’ve been doing.