Empty Pleasures - by Carolyn de la Peña (Paperback)

About the Book

Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda

Book Synopsis

Sugar substitutes have been a part of American life since saccharin was introduced at the 1893 World's Fair. In Empty Pleasures, the first history of artificial sweeteners in the United States, Carolyn de la Peña blends popular culture with business and women's history, examining the invention, production, marketing, regulation, and consumption of sugar substitutes such as saccharin, Sucaryl, NutraSweet, and Splenda. She describes how saccharin, an accidental laboratory by-product, was transformed from a perceived adulterant into a healthy ingredient. As food producers and pharmaceutical companies worked together to create diet products, savvy women's magazine writers and editors promoted artificially sweetened foods as ideal, modern weight-loss aids, and early diet-plan entrepreneurs built menus and fortunes around pleasurable dieting made possible by artificial sweeteners.

NutraSweet, Splenda, and their predecessors have enjoyed enormous success by promising that Americans, especially women, can "have their cake and eat it too," but Empty Pleasures argues that these "sweet cheats" have fostered troubling and unsustainable eating habits and that the promises of artificial sweeteners are ultimately too good to be true.

Review Quotes

"Empty Pleasures is full of insights about artificial sweeteners." -- Gastronomica

"A well-cited, thought-provoking, and fascinating analysis of the sociological, psychological, political, and financial underpinnings of the promotion and use of artificial sweeteners in the U.S. . . . Highly Recommended" -- CHOICE

"Absolutely fascinating. . . . This is not a book that scolds you for your gum habit or insists that drinking diet soda will cause you to put on pounds in the long term. Rather, it is a well-written guide to the history and development of a product that permanently changed our meal preparation, our manufacturing system, and our self-perception." -- SeriousEats.com

"Carolyn de la Pena conducts a thorough review of artificial sweeteners and how their role and perception have changed over the years." -- Wilmington Star-News

"Charmingly written and exhaustively researched, de la Peña's exploration provides a fascinating look into a seemingly commonplace food additive." -- ForeWord Magazine

"De la Pena's substantial skills as a social and cultural historian are on fine display. . . . Illuminating discussion. . . . Offers a too rare glimpse of how the business of chemistry actually works." -- Chemical & Engineering News

"Fascinating." -- The New Yorker "Book Bench" blog

"In its most intriguing chapter, the book details the "saccharin rebellion" . . . [which] reveals much about ordinary Americans' perceptions of pleasure in a risk-filled world." -- A Nota Bene selection of The Chronicle of Higher Education

"In this cultural history, de la Pena shows how everyone from scientists to food conglomerates to ad agencies to women's magazines have conspired to make Americans believe we can have our sweets and eat them too." -- BarnesandNobleReview.com

"Powerfully engaging . . . [a] highly readable narrative. . . . Strongly recommended for general readers who are interested in changes in the American diet and in their own food choices and for collections that focus on the history of industrial food." -- Story Circle Book Reviews

About the Author

Carolyn de la Peña is professor of American studies at the University of California, Davis. She is author of The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American.