Elizabeth Hanna says she was fired by the American Diabetes Association after refusing to approve recipes heaped with the additive made by a major donor

Elizabeth Hanna had a simple job: help people with diabetes figure out what to eat. Anyone with common sense knows this should probably not entail foods that might increase people’s risk of getting diabetes. But that’s not necessarily the thinking at the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the world’s leading diabetes research and patient advocacy group, which also receives millions of dollars from sponsors in the pharmaceutical, food and agricultural industries.

According to a lawsuit Hanna recently filed against the ADA, the organization – which endorses recipes and food plans on its website and on the websites of “partner” food brands – tried to get her to greenlight recipes that she believed flew in the face of the ADA’s mission. These included recipes like a “cucumber and onion salad” made with a third of a cup of Splenda granulated artificial sweetener, “autumnal sheet-pan veggies” with a quarter cup of Splenda monk fruit sweetener and a “cranberry almond spinach salad” with a quarter cup of Splenda monkfruit sweetener.

Guess which company gave more than $1m to the ADA in 2022? Splenda.

  • fireweed@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The salads I kind of understand because sweet dressing is a thing, but sweetened roasted veggies? 🤢

    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      C’mon that’s bullshit. 1/3 a cup of Splenda in a salad? If I said 1/3 a cup of sugar? Jesus Christ what are these recipes?! Lol

      • OftenWrong@startrek.website
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        7 months ago

        I don’t know how familiar you are with salad dressing but you don’t usually pour the entire batch of dressing on one salad lol

        • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          Counter point. I am not aware of any salad dressings that call for a 1/3 of a cup of sugar in a 400ml bottle.

          • OftenWrong@startrek.website
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            7 months ago

            Not being aware something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Sounds gross to me but I wouldn’t even be mildly surprised if it existed

            • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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              7 months ago

              True however you can make the argument that most people don’t pour a whole bottle of salad dressing on their salad but dimes to dollars there are people out there that do.

              Point being, aware or not common sense dictates a level of truth irrespective of it being anecdotal.

              1/3 cups of sugar is 67 grams of carbs. I will bet my life there is no salad dressing that has that many grams of carbs in the bottle. That’s more sugar than 2 cans of coke.