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Sodium Saccharin(E954)

Level 4 — Significant concernsIn Winter's Dictionary2 sources

Sodium Saccharin is a artificial sweetener — Artificial sweetener 300 times sweeter than sugar

Also: Saccharin

What it does

Artificial sweetener 300 times sweeter than sugar

Where you'll see it

diet foods, beverages

What the research says

Bitter aftertaste; on FDA priority list for safety testing [ultra-processed-people] One of the two most commonly consumed artificial sweeteners globally (with cyclamate). Causes rat bladders to contract — an effect of unknown long-term consequence in humans, never properly studied. Shares the general artificial-sweetener mechanism: sweet-taste-without-calorie deception and metabolic dysregulation.

Benefits

Non-caloric sweetener

Regulatory status

  • EU: approved
  • Notes: On FDA priority list for further safety testing

Sources

  • Ultra-Processed People (van Tulleken) — Chapter 5: The three ages of eating: Fahlberg had created saccharin, the first artificial sweetener and, because of the sugar shortages caused by World War 1, the first entirely synthetic compound to be added to our diet on a large scale
  • A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives (Winter): an artificial sweetener in use since 1879; three hundred times as sweet as natural sugar