Funny thing is, sucralose (brand name: Splenda) is 600 times sweeter than sugar. If you open a Splenda packet and a sugar packet side by side, you seem to be getting less sucralose. The fact is, you’re getting a LOT less sucralose! Most of what is in a Splenda packet is filler material that is safe/harmless to consume. I feel like you would be sick if you ate a teaspoon of raw sucralose, but I’m really not sure what would happen. I would not want to find out.

Some say it’s bad for you… I think, largely, this either comes from ignorance (simply not knowing), or fear of a repeat of the aspartame scare of the 1980s (Equal/Sweet-n-Low was thought to cause cancer — it didn’t, but, like the Tylenol scare (where someone opened a bottle and put something else in and someone got sick, leading to those tamper-proof seals you can’t fully remove — that’s why you can’t — it made people wary), or even being part of or affected by Big Sugar propaganda that says fat, not sugar, makes people gain weight (“after all, it’s right in the name”), but the fact is, one Splenda packet in a normal cup of coffee (6-12oz) or two in a larger, gas-station sized (20-24oz) cup is so little of the material, it won’t really do anything to you.

Salt is salt… unless it’s kosher salt or sea salt, which tastes better but lacks something table salt has? I dunno. I mostly just use table salt. In small amounts, of course. I don’t think anyone who cooks skips salt entirely — unless they use MSG, which is a lower-sodium alternative that is also the subject of a conspiracy theory — that Chinese buffets use it to make you fuller, faster. (Sodium, or consuming less sodium, will not make you feel full. Rice, on the other hand, tends to expand in the stomach. But that’s more to do with rice, and not at all to do with sodium.)