SPLENDA Supports the American Heart Association's Simple Cooking with Heart Initiative

SPLENDA Brand will work with the American Heart Association (AHA) to help support its Simple Cooking with Heart initiative.  SPLENDA Brand and the AHA  will create and distribute tools and resources to educate Americans on how to live healthier lives through better nutrition choices, including ways to reduce added sugars.

Through the Simple Cooking with Heart program, SPLENDA Brand and the AHA will provide information and tips to help increase "cooking skill literacy" to help Americans improve their diet quality.  Educational resources will include lower-sugar recipes to help consumers reduce their overall consumption of added sugars, as well as information to help people better understand the safety and benefits of low-calorie sweeteners.

"We are delighted to be working with the SPLENDA Brand to educate and motivate Americans to make smarter, healthier choices for a balanced lifestyle," says Alvin L. Royse, J.D., CPA, Chairman of the Board, American Heart Association.  "Our shared focus will help to make strides towards achieving our goal of improving the cardiovascular health of all Americans by 20 percent, while reducing deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke by 20 percent, by the year 2020."

As part of this initiative, and with summer quickly approaching, the SPLENDA Brand and the AHA encourage Americans to "Sip Smarter" by replacing sugary drinks - like full-calorie soft drinks, energy/sports drinks and non-diet sweetened "enhanced water" or sweet tea – with water and other low-calorie beverages.  Swapping in a low-calorie sweetener for sugar is an easy step to help reduce added sugar intake.

Now it's even easier to make sensible beverage choices with the introduction of new SPLENDA ZERO Liquid Sweetener, which contains zero calories, zero sugar and zero carbs.  SPLENDA ZERO Liquid Sweetener is considered a "free food" in a diabetes meal plan and comes in a no-spill bottle.

"The SPLENDA Brand is committed to helping people meet the 2015 Dietary Guidelines' recommendation to reduce added sugar intake to less than 10 percent of total daily calories," says Maureen Conway, MBA, MA, RDN, FAND, director of nutrition and professional affairs, Heartland Food Products Group, makers of SPLENDA Sweeteners.  "Through our support of the American Heart Association's Simple Cooking with Heart™ initiative, and with products like new SPLENDA ZERO Liquid Sweetener, we hope to encourage Americans to make smarter, balanced decisions for a healthier lifestyle this summer and throughout the year."