The Science of Sweetness

Now I wonder how many chemists have died from licking their fingers..

Oh yes, the FDA is notorious for being trustworthy and never bending to special interest groups.

Hank, learning from you makes me happy.

4:03 can't believe SciShow misused an apostrophe !!

If someone is wondering... just because sucralose has chlorine does not mean it is toxic. Chlorine by itself it toxic, and also apart of SODIUM CHLORIDE, or table salt. So you already ingest it a lot in your everyday proceedings.

You forgot sodium cyclamate. It may still be banned in the US, but it's sold in other countries under names like Sucaryl (or Sugar Twin in Canada), often in a mix of 10 parts cyclamate to 1 part saccrine.

Still one of my absolute all time favorite informative videos ever, the others (in no particular order) are another scishow about the most dangerous chemicals and a Vsauce about De Ja Vu.

One of my favourite series! Thank you, so informative.

I love this video, it's still one of my all-time favorite educational/informative videos on the internet! This and the episode on the 5 most dangerous chemicals I just love to watch on occasion! Speaking of which, looking in the comments, I said almost the same thing 1 and 2 years ago. Am I accidentally making a tradition of viewing these two videos and commenting my love for them once a year?

You missed out on Xylitol. A natural sweetener like stevia, that I can't tell the difference from sugar like other sweeteners. And it actually helps rebuild teeth - stopping cavities.

Thank-you so much for this!!!! As an ND, I talk about this with my patients all the time. It's so awesome to now have a video I can share with them. You're awesome!

Keep the good info coming, thank Hank you are super!☺

So next time I'm in chemistry I should lick my fingers?

watches video, pouring coke zero that rarely drinks. sips it "although, some artificial sweeteners are tested that it gives cancer to lab rats" stays silent for a while - regretting "Moderation is the key." Okay.

Great vid, really enjoyed that one. Thx SciShow!

I think this might be my favorite SciShow episode yet! SO INFORMATIVE! Thanks Hank.

Saccharin doesn't cause cancer. It certainly does cause bladder cancer in rats, but this is one of those cases where a poor animal model was chosen. The reason for this, as it turns out, is that rats have different environments in their bladders than humans do. As a result of different proteins and pH they produce things in conjunction with saccharin which cause damage to the lining of their bladder; repeated damage to your bladder (or anything else) will raise cancer risk due to more cell division and other factors. As it turns out, this does not happen in humans, so saccharin is, as far as we can tell, harmless. This is hardly the only chemical compound where some animal models are poor choices; humans eat all sorts of things which cause toxic effects in critters.

He brought up the fact that cats can't taste sweet, yet not  that they CAN taste ATP. I feel like that information would have been beneficial to the video.

hey , ur team work is excellent, & the information u r giving is v.nic :) really good job.

Brilliant, I loved it, I discovered a ton of things I didn't know and more importantly you got me thinking twice about my daily choices. Oh well, you often do. Great great channel really, keep it up man.