Sucralose, gluten and pregnancy

Hey everyone!

My first batch of Jimmy Joy has arrived today. I was very happy to receive it and try my first Plennyshake, but was a bit disappointed when I saw it contains artificial sweetener (sucralose), which I didn’t realise before placing my order. I will certainly not consume as much Plennyshake as I would if it didn’t contain artificial sweeteners becuase of the studies that link them to health problems. I would love to get some more information on sucralose, its possible negative effects and ammounts on Plennyshakes.

I have two other questions:

1 . As I am trying to get pregnant, is it ok to keep taking the shakes when I get pregnant? I saw a post at the forum which mentions there might not be enough of a few nutrients for pregnant women: Cronometer and various dietary and information requests but there is no answer from Jimmy Joy.

  1. Are the vegan shakes gluten free?

Thanks a lot!

Maria

Regarding the sucralose issue, all research I have read on the topic indicating it is not safe has been riddled with issues and questionable (at best) scientific practice. However, this study may put your mind at ease somewhat. It is a study involving many different sweeteners and their effect on pregnancy. For the section on sucralose, the following is said:

“Sucralose is another common artificial sweetener. Animal studies report no increased risk of malformations or other adverse fetal effects with exposure to high-dose levels of sucralose during pregnancy.21”

21: 21. Kille JW, Tesh JM, McAnulty PA, Ross FW, Willoughby CR, Bailey GP, et al. Sucralose: assessment of teratogenic potential in the rat and the rabbit. Food Chem Toxicol. 2000;38(Suppl 2):S43–52. [PubMed].

Additionally, Health Canada suggest an Acceptable Daily Intake which is referred to in the same paper. This is mainly to ensure pregnant women are getting enough nutrition as opposed to negative effects encountered by consumption, but the ADI given for sucralose is 9mg per kilogram of body weight. Assuming you weigh 60kg, this means the ADI of sucralose is 540mg per day. Given that sucralose is a sweetener with approximately 600 times the sweetness of sugar, this is the equivalent (in terms of sweetness) of 324000mg of sugar, or 324 grams - Jimmy Joy certainly doesn’t have that much!

I am… less aware of the required nutrition for pregnant women, aside from a recommended supplementation of folate to a total of 600mcg per day (Jimmy Joy has, I believe, 200mcg). This page has the US Daily Value and US Dietary Reference Intakes on it, and these big feature recommendations for pregnant women. However, they also have different values for adults fairly frequently, so I’m not sure how helpful that will be for you.

Finally, to my knowledge the vegan version isn’t gluten-free, but the ingredients and nutritional information page should tell you if that is the case.

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Thank you so much @Genesis, this was incredibly useful!

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