- [Andrew] Wanna try some gummies?
- [Co-Worker] Oh gosh, no.
- [Andrew] For science?
- [Co-Worker 2] That's not good.
- [Andrew] No?
What's the flavor?
- [Co-Worker 2] Bad.
- [Andrew] Those two are pretty standard sweeteners
that you'll find in just about any coffee shop.
- [Sam] Okay.
- [Andrew] These other two,
you will not find anywhere, really.
'Cause they're way too sweet to be useful.
And they're also super expensive.
- [Sam] Oh wow. Okay.
- [Andrew] Also, before you get started,
for the hardcore fans.
- Hi, I'm Sam, I'm still alive.
(laughs) Is that a good greeting?
(loud ding)
- A while back, some Amazon reviews
of sugar-free gummies went viral
because a lot of people were reporting severe
gastrointestinal distress when they ate them.
Well, apparently, that is actually real.
And those gummies have been discontinued
because the artificial sweetener they used,
was in fact, a laxative.
Why would you put a laxative in?
Now, it seems to me, that there are three things you want
out of an artificial sweetener.
One, tastes sweet.
Two, has fewer calories than sugar.
And three, doesn't cause diarrhea or other life
disrupting health impacts when you eat it.
Turns out, getting all three of those things just right
is more difficult than you would think.
So, I have a few artificial sweeteners that supposedly
do not cause gastrointestinal distress.
I'm gonna test them out in some coffee first.
And then I'm gonna see if I can find one that works
for a sugar-free gummy that won't ruin your day.
There's a lot of scientific interest around why
we have evolved to like sweet things.
So much scientific interest in fact,
that Sam and Deboki have dedicated an entire episode
of their "Tiny Matters" podcast to it.
Link down below.
- Listen to to Tiny Matters!
- But, I don't care so much
about why we like sweet things.
I'm more interested in what alternatives are available
to satiate our sweet desires.
But how does something
that isn't sugar trick your tongue
into thinking that it is?
Well, first off, how do we even taste sugar
to begin with?
(soft crunch)
Mm-hm, that's sugar.
I'm not sure what I hope to learn.
Sucrose, fructose and glucose,
are the big three sugars we think
about when we're talking about sweet things.
When one of those hits your tongue
it interacts with taste receptor cells or TRCs.
Some of these TRCs detect sweet molecules
because they have proteins
on their surface called taste receptors.
There are a variety of different kinds
of taste receptors that can detect bitter, salty, umami.
But today, we're really just interested
in the sweet taste receptors.
The sweet taste receptor is made up
of two proteins, T1R2 and T1R3.
Those come together to form a heterodimer.
This heterodimer sits in the cell membrane.
So there is a part that sticks out into your mouth.
There is a transmembrane domain, that like it sounds,
runs through the cell membrane.
And then there's another part inside the cell.
The outside, or extracellular part, has a little pocket
on it where sugars or amino acids or proteins can bind.
The binding pocket where sugars go is called
the Venus flytrap domain.
Presumably because someone thought it looked
like a Venus flytrap, I guess?
I hope we have a graphic for this.
Things like sucrose, fructose, and glucose, bind
to the extracellular domain of this heterodimer and set
off a signal cascade that tells your brain,
"Sweet thing good."
But they're not the only thing that can bind
to this domain and send that signal to your brain.
So, we have options.
(cardboard tears)
When you think of artificial sweeteners,
you're probably thinking of the pink
and blue and multicolored packets that sit next
to the coffee stirrers in a cafe.
They work in slightly different ways
and you're not imagining it.
They taste a little different too.
Some artificial sweeteners work just by being way,
way sweeter than sugar.
So you only need a tiny amount
of them to get the same sweet flavor
in your coffee or your gummy bears.
A lot of these have names you might recognize.
Aspartame, acesulfame k, neotame, saccharin,
sucralose, cyclamate and alitame.
I'm probably saying all of those wrong.
I have no idea.
Chicka-mate? Chicka-matey?
Let's look at aspartame.
Aspartame is the blue stuff in your local cafe.
Aspartame binds to that same Venus flytrap module
of the heterodimer, but it binds with greater affinity.
Meaning, it's holding down that sweet button harder
and longer than just sucrose.
(elevator music) (button clicks)
(bell dings)
So, aspartame is up to 200 times sweeter than table sugar.
It's a combination of two different amino acids
aspartic acid and phenylalinine.
Now, your body can break those down,
so it does technically have some calories.
But, because it smashes that sweet button
so much more effectively than sucrose,
you use a lot less of it.
Making it a low calorie option.
And speaking of smashing that button,
don't forget to smash that like and subscribe.
Aspartame. (slurps and swishes)
(soft gulp) Ah.
Yeah, that just tastes like normal.
Oh. (smacks lips)
At first it tastes like normal sugar
but then there's something else afterwards.
A little bit of a bitter flavor, maybe a tiny bit metallic?
I mean, I'm still gonna finish this cup of coffee, but.
The nutrition facts on the side
of the aspartame box, list it as having zero calories,
which isn't strictly true.
But, at the serving size of one packet,
which is one gram of this sweetener.
Which, contains only a tiny amount of actual aspartame.
You're not really getting a meaningful amount
of energy out of it.
So, rounding down, basically zero calories.
But, some sweeteners can't be broken down
by your body at all.
Sucralose is a great example of this.
That's the one that usually comes in yellow packets.
Or, you get it in a big brown bag if you don't want a ton
of little packets lying around your kitchen.
Sucralose is made from sucrose, but the OH groups
on sucrose are swapped out for CL groups.
Meaning, your body can't do a thing with it.
But just like aspartame, it binds
to the extracellular domain
of that sweet taste receptor
with higher affinity than sugar.
(bell rings) So you use less of it.
In fact, sucralose is 300
to 1,000 times sweeter than sucrose.
Not only does it not have any calories
but you also need way less
of it than you would of regular sugar.
Now, sucralose is also pretty heat stable,
which might make it a good option for our gummies later.
For now, I'm gonna try it out in some coffee.
And, I have no idea how much of this I'm supposed to use,
'cause it's not pre-measured in packets for me.
Stop.
Oh, whoa!
Wow.
And I think I'm just gonna want a very tiny amount of this.
Sucralose.
(quiet slurp)
Sucralose tastes sweeter than aspartame to me.
That could just be the amount.
But, (smacks lips) it's a cleaner sweetness.
It tastes more like sugar.
It doesn't have
that kind of, weird, bitter
or metallic aftertaste,
that I was getting from aspartame.
Normally, when you're shooting a video,
you're supposed to sip and then spit.
And then you cut out the spit.
I'm not doing that, for some reason.
I actually like sucralose.
That has a good flavor to it.
Rounding out our coffee cart options is, the pink stuff.
Saccharin.
Saccharin is also not broken down by our bodies.
Meaning, you get zero calories from it.
And it binds with higher affinity than sucrose.
Saccharin is actually about 300 times sweeter than sucrose.
(paper rips)
Saccharin was discovered
when a chemist did not wash his hands
after doing an experiment
then noticed a sweet taste when he touched his food.
Come on man, put on some gloves.
Wash your hands.
Have a little self-respect.
This, unfortunately, is not the only example
of an artificial sweetener being discovered
through poor lab safety.
Aspartame was discovered when someone licked his finger
to turn a page.
And cyclamate was discovered
when a chemist set his cigarette down
on the lab desk and then noticed a sweet taste
when he took a puff later.
The American Chemical Society would like to
remind you not to eat, lick, drink, or smoke
any of the chemicals you're working with in a lab.
That means you, grad students.
(slurps coffee) Okay.
(smack lips) Not a fan of saccharin.
Maybe I just blew out my taste buds with
that excessive dose of sucralose?
There's definitely a side flavor here.
There's something else going on that I'm not crazy about.
Three cups of coffee in and I'm doing just fine.
A relative newcomer to the coffee cart options is stevia.
Stevia usually comes in a green packet in your cafes.
Or, if you get it from a questionable internet source,
it comes in a manila envelope.
Stevia is an extract of
the Stevia rebaudiana,
Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni plant.
Rather than being a single molecule like other sweeteners,
stevia is several molecules.
All of them viosterol glycosides.
Modeling studies suggest
that viosterol glycosides are binding
with that same little extra cellular domain
as regular sugars, and they're binding
with greater affinity.
So you use less of them.
That makes them a low calorie option
even though your body can get some energy
out of stevia leaf extract.
- [Narrator] Stee-via is how it is said.
Not steh-via, but rather, stee-via.
(frustrated grunt)
- So, stevia in our fourth cup
of coffee, here.
Does that seem like a a good amount?
Whoa.
(smacks lips) I can taste that from opening the package.
That's concerning.
Stevia.
Very sweet.
And there's that, ugh. (smacks lips)
There's that stevia weirdness that, if you've ever had it,
I think you're familiar with.
I guess some people like it.
It doesn't do it for me.
I'm still gonna finish this fourth cup of coffee, though.
(gulps) Ah.
When it first hits my tongue,
it tastes just like normal sugar.
But then, just a second or two later,
there's some other flavor in there
that I don't have a word for.
And it just tastes fake.
But none of these options sound particularly distressing,
or laxatives.
They're not laxatives, is what I'm trying to say here.
So, what was going on with those infamous gummy bears?
Well, that brand of gummy bears was sweetened
with something called sugar alcohols.
Sugar alcohols are made by adding a hydrogen
to a sugar molecule.
The fact checkers didn't love the way
that I said that.
They thought it was a little misleading.
What I should have said, is that sugar alcohols
have a hydroxyl group where sugars have an aldehyde.
It's not like there's a little guy taking hydrogens
and sticking 'em onto sugars
to make sugar alcohols.
Ugh! Factual accuracy.
Sugar alcohols typically have about a third
to a half the number of calories of regular sugar,
because your body converts them to glucose more slowly
than it does with sucrose.
The problem is
that sugar alcohols can have a laxative effect.
Sugar alcohols can pass right through your stomach,
unmodified, and get to your intestines
where they are fermented by bacteria.
That fermentation causes gas, bloating
sprinting to the bathroom, those kinds of problems.
The FDA requires products that contain a daily dose
of over 50 grams of sorbitol or 20 grams
of mannitol to be labeled
with a "laxative effect" warning.
Sugar alcohols in and of themselves aren't necessarily bad.
But, if you eat too many gummy bears,
you can exceed that laxative limit.
If you stuck to the recommended serving size
of those sugar free gummies you would probably be just fine.
But who has ever stuck
to the recommended serving size of gummies?
Serving size, five pieces.
Right.
And, on top of our total lack
of self-control, sugar substitutes have been linked
to overeating.
In flies and rats, diets rich in artificial sweeteners
have caused the brain to forget
that link between sweetness
and calories, leading to overeating.
The link is less clear in humans, but habitual use
of artificial sweeteners has been counterintuitively linked
to weight gain.
It's possible that it's breaking that same link
in your brain between sweetness and calories.
Causing you to eat more gummies, drink more coffee,
drink more soda, and eventually, have some bad side effects.
For our sugar-free gummies,
I'm thinking sucralose is gonna
be the best option.
But, there are a couple other surprise contenders
that I wanna throw into the mix.
The first of the surprise options
is a plant protein called thaumatin.
Thaumatin is 30,000 to 100,000 times sweeter
than sugar, depending on which source you believe.
And interestingly, it binds
to a different spot
on that heterodimer than all of
the other sweeteners we've talked about so far.
Thaumatin binds to a little region called
the cysteine-rich domain.
Called that because it is rich
in the amino acid cysteine.
That region sits between the Venus flytrap
and the transmembrane domains.
It's not totally clear why binding there
causes it to be so much sweeter than sugar.
But, because it has such a strong effect,
it can be used as a flavor enhancer or to mask bitter
or metallic flavors from other artificial sweeteners,
like saccharin.
One source suggests that the electrical charge
on the outside of the protein causes it to bind
to both the receptor and to other flavor molecules
that might be in your mouth.
As a protein, it can be broken down
by your body and generate calories.
But, because it's so sweet
you only need to use a tiny, tiny bit of it.
So it doesn't have a significant caloric impact.
In fact, this little jar contains 100 milligrams
of thaumatin, and costs $75.
So, that's pretty much our whole video budget, right there.
Our other surprise contender
for the sugar free gummies is one called neotame,
which according to some sources is
the sweetest sweetener of them all.
In fact, one of the Amazon reviews I saw
for this was someone who was angry that it was too sweet.
Another one suggested just dipping
the tip of a knitting needle into it
to get the right amount for an entire recipe.
Neotame is a derivative of aspartame
and is tens of thousands of times sweeter than sugar.
In fact, I'm a little bit nervous to open this package
because it might make my entire kitchen taste sweet
for several weeks.
I don't know.
But, let's try making some gummies.
(inquisitive pop music plays)
(metallic scraping)
So here's what $75 worth of thaumatin looks like.
Can you see it down there?
Right there at the bottom, $75 bucks.
(music continues)
Taking the first batch outta the mold
and they actually look like gummy bears.
I can't believe I actually did something.
Now that we're far enough into this video
I feel comfortable admitting to you,
I don't really like gummy bears.
And I hate the taste of artificial sweetener.
So I'm gonna walk around ACS headquarters and see
if I can get other people to taste test this for me.
- I hate gummies. (Andrew laughs)
It's got a good flavor.
Not too sweet, but a little sweet.
So this is the neotame.
That's kinda tasty.
Sucralose. Ugh.
- There's no like, clearly visible cringing.
Oh wait, I spoke too soon. (Andrew laughs)
- It hit me like a little bit later.
Not right away.
Yeah, it tastes a little bit more like Diet Coke.
- [Andrew] There's like, probably close
to 50 grams worth of saccharin powder in there.
The sucralose, I think I put like 30
to 40 grams of that in there.
This one probably has maybe one gram, maybe half a gram.
- [Sam] Oh my gosh.
- [Andrew] And that one has
about 50 milligrams.
- [Sam] This one is saccharin?
It's very bad. (Andrew laughs)
It's very bad.
I don't wanna say rancid, but I wanna say rancid.
The neotame was very sweet to me.
- [Matt] The first two, they were tasty, right?
The sucralose was bad tasting.
- [Andrew] (laughs) Okay.
- [Matt] And the saccharin was just sort of bland.
- [Sam] I thought these two were the most like, artificial.
- [Andrew] In the end everyone agreed
that two were pretty good and one was terrible.
But, no one agreed on which one was which.
- [Sam] Who put this in there?
- [Andrew] They're both food safe.
- [Sam] Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I was hoping they were food safe
before you asked me.
- [Andrew] I appreciate that you didn't ask
before trying them.
- That's true.
I trust you too much, Andrew.
- [Andrew] But as far as I know,
no one had any explosive trips
to the bathroom after eating these.
So I'm calling it a success.