They are usually "off brand" or Sweet-n-Low, but this pink packet? It was Equal.
At first I wondered how tired I was. Was my mind really playing tricks on me? Nope, it was there all right. An entire caddy of saccharin sweeteners, dressed in pink, wearing the same name of a sweetener I'd come to associate with aspartame and blue.
Being the naturally curious/journalistically educated person that I am, I took to the internet to see what the heck was going on. It appears that Equal and PureVia are part of the same company. Equal now makes Equal Blue, Pink, and Yellow. That's aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose. PureVia comes in green packets.
So what does that give us? A rainbow of artificial sweetener options! And you know who loves rainbows? Unicorns. Also, Nyan Cat.
Thanks, Equal. Now I have yet another way to confuse my friends when asking them to pass me a fake sugar at a restaurant. Blue ones were previously always "Equal" to me. Now I need to go with the color codes.
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| via Equal.com |
I'll tell you what scares me... the way we've become so accustomed to those colors meaning those particular artificial sweeteners. I instinctively pick the Blue packet of whatever it may be and put it in my coffee. Who's to say that Blue has to be Aspartame? There's no law stopping someone from putting regular sugar in blue packets. Or salt. Or cocaine. (OK, there is a law against that last one).
ReplyDeleteAnd I use that term "pass the fake sugar" a lot too!
Huh. Yeah, I'm right there with you guys.
ReplyDeleteHow confusing!
ReplyDeleteWow, it is a rainbow. Sign me up for the yellow. Thanks for the info! I'm enjoying reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteOh for crying out loud ... yellow Equal? I can't handle this.
ReplyDeleteThis freaked me out the first time I saw it, too. I guess the company wants to sell all sweetner varieties, and color is an easy way to communicate what each one is. It forces us to read the ingredients!
ReplyDelete