Why most Americans have never had this sweetener

[@ethanisfancy]

Died at the completely sincere delivery of "nice work" after describing how Ayds avoided a PR crisis

[@Bacopa68]

Well, it took about 12 years until the next one.

[@rayne6719]

Ayds will leave you with that gaunt wasting figure you've always wanted

[@zumabbar]

is the joke about how Ayds sounds similar to AIDS? not from the states, so im not familiar with the candy

[@TheoFizylkl]

​@@zumabbar the joke is that ayds was before aids. And when aids happened, it went full blown in ayds and killed it. Rip

[@room34]

I'm (just barely) old enough to remember when Ayds candies were still on the market. As soon as I saw that box, I was wondering how Phil was going to handle it. Nailed it.

[@BambiTrout]

Allegedly, Sveda actually discovered it when he went on his cigarette break. He had put his cigarette down on the lab bench and got some chemicals on it without realising, and then was really confused when his cigarette tasted sweet. Health and safety apparently wasn't a top priority amongst grad students in 1937.

[@youtubeSuckssNow]

@Lurch we know so much because people were careless and plentiful. Rules are written in blood.

[@schmeegledorf]

@Lurch someone who’s already a smoker and isn’t actively attempting to quit is going to smoke more if they’re more stressed

[@Herfinnur]

During our safety training, our high school cemistry teacher told us that her chemistry teacher knew the taste and smell of every substance in the lab and wouldn't even bother making labels or often even looking at the labels

[@Bando-fx4mf]

How about manita ?

[@matthewbarry376]

I heard the story was he didn't wash his hands properly went home and made bread for his dinner, the bread tasted sweet and he figured out it must have been something in his lab.

[@Karnegis]

My Dad was a peach farmer. The cannery he sold to went under because they put cyclamates in their products. He lost a lot of money that was owed to him and was angry about it until he died.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

dang i can imagine

[@Bubu567]

I guess he should have scared the bajesus out of select scientists until they found sugar caused cancer by wrong dosing for a fabricated conclusion... This is clearly how things work.

[@cd5433]

Could he not have sold to another company ?

[@AgentOffice]

@@cd5433 one harvest delivered maybe

[@BlackSeranna]

I feel for your dad. Farmers are forgotten and swept under the rug like dust until people run out of food. Also, they subject themselves to so many poisons used for plants to grow, so a lot of them die of cancer. I’m from a family of farmers and the irony isn’t lost on me. (I’m not a farmer now, because of aforesaid health conditions).

[@knightguard1724]

I had a feeling from the begining this was going to be a "Big American business wanted to get rid of the competition" story. Not really surprised since that seems to be the status quo for things banned in the US but are legal in Europe or elsewhere.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

I was surprised to find it. An interesting category of substances...

[@pvanukoff]

Follow the money. Leads you to the real reason every time.

[@johnsavard7583]

Yes, I remember learning of the plot against Royal Crown Cola.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

@@johnsavard7583 I think this actually was all started by a comment about why Diet Rite lost.

[@tetsuoshima2314]

Right? and vice versa how we allow many chemicals here that are banned for good reasons in the EU and elsewhere, always money.

[@Ashley-xu1lk]

Meanwhile there's so many other additives like certain food dyes that studies have shown to negatively effect children and people in general but are still used in the US while it's discouraged or banned in the UK.

[@SomePotato]

There's also plenty of additives where it is the other way around. For example, Ponceau 4R (E124) is allowed in the EU & UK, but banned in the US.

[@peterjamesfoote3964]

Red dye no. 2 supposed to be cancerous. Then again if you ate a package of yellow zingers with a can of mellow yellow it was supposed to get you high! Hahahahahaha!

[@BambiTrout]

@@SomePotato According to the Encyclopedia of Food Safety Vol. 2, there's no evidence of carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, neurotoxicity, or reproductive and developmental toxicity at the permitted dietary exposures of Ponceau 4R. There are some concerns about certain production byproducts that might make it into the final product and may be linked to cancer, and one study suggested an increase in child hyperactivity after consumption, but the evidence was weak and the results haven't been replicated.

[@SomePotato]

@@BambiTrout I didn't want to discuss the details of this additive. It was just an example for an additive which different regulatory bodies evaluate differently. And it's not always the EU and the UK that are stricter than the US.

[@BahKnee]

Skittles are banned in some countries because of one of the coloring agents, but here we are consuming it every day. The FDA is a joke for the most part.

[@Nomad5d]

Got to love the FDA. Years ago my doctor prescribed me a drug that was legal in most of the world but had not been FDA approved so I had to buy it from Canada. The FDA approved drug that worked similarly had horrible side effects so we avoided that one.

[@Detroit6V92TA]

Levamisol? I was on that and it worked great! Then they banned it and I had to get it from Canada. Then my doctor was like oh, try this FDA approved cytotoxic drug called Cellcept. It works better. It never did anything, except make me super prone to sunburns. Levamisol was the best.

[@darcos7535]

The problem with many US agencies is arrogance and a lack of pragmatism and unwillingness to look to other regions of the world.

[@thatrandomguyontheinternet2477]

The USA Both over and underregulated

[@kennethkho7165]

@@thatrandomguyontheinternet2477 the land of the stupid

[@Madwonk]

I grew up on a sugarbeet farm, and these kinds of issues really make me think about the interaction between farming and science. My parents always told me to avoid artificial sweeteners because they give you cancer, even though with my science background I now know that's not really the case! This is also true of climate change and (in places like California) the water used by farms to make a profit. Farmers are single issue voters, unfortunately: what is good for business is the only important thing, even if it causes climate change or obesity or cancer. FFS, some of the biggest lobbyists in DC after the military-industrial complex are literally farm interests!

[@sparqqling]

I wouldn't be surprised the most farmers get cancer from the pesticides they use without the proper personal protection.

[@kitefan1]

@@iridium8341 There are drug, power and manufacturing sectors of course, but If the agriculture interests aren't lobbying why do they have so many councils, The Dairy council, those folks promoting the "other white meat", Angus Beef, California grape people. Apples from WA, Oranges which used to be from FL and so on?

[@rodh1404]

Well, they COULD cause cancer, in sufficiently large quantities. But my understanding is that you'd have to have a MASSIVE amount for that to happen. If you had the equivalent of that in sugar, I doubt it would work out well either. Even water is can kill you if you drink it in sufficiently large quantities over a short period of time.

[@derek20la]

Yes! How dare farmers make a profit! They should be giving all their food away to the people for free! Farmers have been known thruout history for their great wealth. It is a very lucrative industry, with absolutely no risk from weather or economic downturns. Droughts? Floods? Don't they have insurance for that? And it makes great economic sense to pay $16/hour for unskilled manual labor. Why not $25/hr for bagging carrots? The oppressed worker deserves it!!

[@Madwonk]

@@derek20la I mean, you do realize that not all farmers are the same? The issue here isn't farmers who need help getting government assistance, it's the flagrant abuse of public aid and government resources to enrich themselves.

[@VictoriaKimball]

I remember cyclamates! The adults in my family drank a lot of diet soda with cyclamates and I drank enough Funny Face to collect lots of FF merch, like mugs and weighted walking toys. On the day before the ban went into effect, I went with my grandparents to the local Canada Dry factory (or was it Shasta?) and they bought many, many cases of diet soda! Later, they wished they had bought more as cyclamates tasted so much better than saccharine. Our family doctor said you'd need to drink a crazy amount of diet soda (like hundreds of cans a day) to consume the equivalent of what the rats were given.

[@alexanderstone9463]

350 cans per day to be precise…

[@VictoriaKimball]

@@alexanderstone9463 ... Yes!

[@BrandEver117]

Not to mention rats are pretty much the worst animal to test the carcinogenic ability of chemicals in because they are just little cancer factories normally

[@TEMPLE7D]

But when you do something to the rats, and they ALL get cancer at the same time. I wouldn’t blame the rats so much.

[@iguanac6466]

@@TEMPLE7D BrandEver is probably referring to the fact that rats used for experimentation are bred to be susceptible to cancer. Anyone who has had pet rats knows, they are probably going to die from tumors even under the best environment because pet rats are bred from those same rats. I've probably owned six pet rats and they all died with massive tumors...every pet rat owner I've talked to has had the same experience.

[@ChristopherCobra]

@@TEMPLE7D Notice how lab rats are generally white? They are specially bred with recessive traits for reproducibility between experiments. The whole point is for them ALL to react the exact same. They are good for testing toxic limits as a first pass. But they have little bearing on what would happen to actual wild mice - or humans. Not that I support using artificial sweeteners - just that the experiments they did were bogus and show nothing really.

[@williamthurmond4940]

I had a pet hairless rat. It died…of cancer. Apparently running on a wheel, drinking water and eating rat chow causes cancer.

[@HotdogFiend69]

@@TEMPLE7D humans aren't rats. They die eating chocolate and can't digest foods in the same way we can.

[@Meg_A_Byte]

Ah, classic trick of wrong dosing while testing. That really brought out the political side of the story. If they tried the same method with water, maybe they'd ban it too, but I'm sure companies selling water wouldn't like that :) Thanks for the interesting video again, Phil!

[@tetsuoshima2314]

Right? Just like when Consumer Reports got the Suzuki Samurai (a.k.a. Jimny) banned in the US for someone's personal reasons after forcefully making it flip over on purpose after repeated failed attempts where it wouldn't. So the rest of the world can have it to this day and not only can we not but Suzuki eventually pulled out of America completely, all from petty sabotage.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I was thinking the same thing but about caffeine, since it will cause a heart attack if you have 5-6 orders of magnitude more than even excessive human consumption provides.

[@lnplum]

I wonder how sugar or high fructose corn syrup would fare if it were treated as an additive and rated based on the effects of extremely high dosages.

[@Meg_A_Byte]

@@lnplum *The whole US economy starts sweating profusely*

[@AdamBlack]

Animal dosing is a very difficult question to test for long term use in long lived animals. rat tumor tests are also very difficult as they freuqntly develop tumors anyway so need very good controls.

[@user-jk2zm7uq5s]

"Up-Beet" as a magazine title for a trade magazine for beet growers is actually really cool. However nothing beats the title "Pumper", the trade publication for porta-potties!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

the real ones know

[@Mate_Antal_Zoltan]

the more absurd part of it to me is that there is a magazine for beet growers is it that big of a business in the US or has the magazine stopped publishing for decades?

[@BEdwardStover]

@@Mate_Antal_Zoltan Sugar cane is a better producer of sugar, but doesn't grow well in many parts of the US. Sugar beets, on the other hand, actually grow well in areas that are not able to farm much other than close relatives of beets, like rutabagas. When in the last time you had a rutabaga? I live in Michigan, and the Huron Bay area is the center of beet farming in Michigan. It is big business. As far as rutabagas go, my brother used to own land near the Saint Clair River. While there he grew the hottest turnips I ever had, and rutabagas so big he carved jack o lanterns from the largest and displayed them next to the pumpkins. I don't know why certains soils are better for certain vegetables, but when I was a child, the only sugar available in Michigan was beet sugar. Cane sugar had more shipping costs, but I expect it was more of a legislate to support local farmers rather than far away farmers. The big change to sugar pricing in the US was after the US cut ties with Cuba over Castro. Sugar was cheaper before that because Cuba had the perfect weather and soil for sugar cane. Castro was fighting against all the US corporations controlling everything there and paying Cubans low wages while showing off their wealth in Casinos in Havana.

[@Pehmokettu]

Here in Finland we have Pasi Kuikka, a guy who owns a porta potty company with same name (PasiKuikka). Pasi Kuikka is a pun - it is a regular Finnish name, but if you arrange the letters then Kusi Paikka means a "place to pee". The founder was not originally named Pasi Kuikka, he was Tomi Kuikka, but he changed his first name.

[@J-1410]

@@Mate_Antal_Zoltan Pick any crop in the US and its territories. There's an organization and possibly affiliated magazine to go with it.

[@YoungGandalf2325]

5:59 I wasn't watching the video, only listening and heard "AIDS could've had a huge PR problem but totally avoided it. Nice work." 😮 I had to rewatch that part.

[@peterjamesfoote3964]

My mom kept a box of Ayds in the kitchen cabinet. She took it with hot water. Didn’t help but it was a well known fad.

[@pennyjim5671]

"The tried and true but seldom used method of willpower" You found a *great* clip of a reporter talking about it

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

haha that guy seemed so crabby, pretty funny

[@Science__Politics]

​@@PhilEdwardsInc sorry to intrude on your conversation, but how does the artificial sweetener taste compared to sugar, in your Americanized-experience opinion?

[@YoungGandalf2325]

Where can I find this "willpower"? Is it sold over the counter or do I need a prescription?

[@bob_._.]

@@Science__Politics In my American experience, though it's been several decades ago, the flavor was the same as refined white sugar; so no flavor at all, just sweetness.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

@@Science__Politics I didn't quite trust myself cause I never have anything in my coffee and rarely have artificial sweeteners. That said I thought it was good! Bitter initial taste but then addictively sweet. So I'm kinda a a fan. I really wanna try the sodas though.

[@DaveTexas]

I remember being given a packet containing a sodium cyclamate sweetener on my first flight to Europe in 1990. I knew what it was and I was very curious to try it. It was great in my coffee! I tried some different sugar-free sodas while I was there and they were so much better than saccharine-sweetened and aspartame-sweetened sodas. I went into a grocery store while I was there and bought a box of cyclamate tablets to bring home. I probably broke some law by bringing it home with me, but I wasn’t stopped in Customs upon my return so I enjoyed sodium cyclamate in my coffee and tea for months!

[@runed0s86]

It's illegal to bring it into the country for commercial reasons. It's fine for personal use.

[@BEdwardStover]

The BIG question, which you skipped right over, is why was saccharine approved while cyclamates denied? They got rats to get cancer from saccharine, from force feeding them something like 3000 times what a normal human would consume, by body weight. I don't recall why it was deemed safe while the attempts to appeal the cyclamate ban failed.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

I think it requires a bit more opinion than I felt comfortable with putting in the video. With that caveat, I think the media firestorm over Jacqueline Verrett was probably the reason - just a matter of timing (and the people in power in the respective bureaucracies). The later FDA attempt to ban saccharine got fought by consumers and companies and didn't have such a fantastical demo. Differing opinion?

[@ptorq]

Probably because saccharine tastes FOUL, so the Sugar Cartel wasn't as worried about it. "Ha ha ha," they laughed. "Sure, let them drink something that tastes like straight up poison for a while; they'll come running back to us soon enough." (I am apparently a supertaster and all diet sweeteners taste bad to me. Cyclamates were one of the least objectionable; I remember being able to drink Tab and whatever the 7-up equivalent was without immediately retching, but after cyclamates were banned the only zero calorie drink I wanted anything to do with was water or unsweetened iced tea. Sucralose is marginally tolerable in things that are supposed to be sour and a little bitter anyway like lemonade or iced tea with lemon even though it doesn't taste quite right, but sucralose plus anything else and we're back to "this is straight up poison.")

[@OneUniti]

I think this video is a great example of why being scientifically literate is important. If the people who saw headlines also read the study to see just how much the rats were given, a different outcome would’ve happened!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yes! i do think (though i am totally basing this on instinct) some science reporting has gotten better too. but then again, i have seen how bad the ai reporting is and second guess things!

[@hawtice6776]

I’ve seen some people unironically want Flouride banned because of similar scientific experiments that showed the dangers of ridiculously high doses. The dose makes the poison.

[@pasta-and-heroin]

@@PhilEdwardsInc I think you guys are both correct. I think the issue comes from studies being made for & by scientists - there is no intermediary who digests, translates & summarises them for the general public. Not sure there ever will be; it’s hardly eye-catching to everyday consumers to read ‘science says dinosaurs still old’. the tried & true method of ‘hey look, coffee cures cancer!’ will probably stick around!

[@snickerdoooodle]

They've used a similar method to study the mortality rate of marijuana smokers, by strapping a gas mask on monkey's faces and choking them with nothing but marijuana smoke. This is why when someone cites a study, it's SO important to read how it was done.

[@Objectified]

@@PhilEdwardsInc A scientifically literate population is largely irrelevant when decisions are largely driven by and made between government, business, and activists.

[@Mate_Antal_Zoltan]

I'm Hungarian, my grandma always put these in her coffee and would let me taste one every time I visited. It's been years since she passed away and now I've almost forgotten the taste, but it's also been ages since I've ever seen any on store shelves (though to be fair the only place I've ever seen it was in my grandma's shelf so I guess I should look harder)

[@jackcarver1629]

You could probably do a whole series on banned products that nobody really considered. I wonder what products we are using today that will get the same treatment

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

it seems like!

[@dudukf]

@@PhilEdwardsInc Dipyrone!

[@1989Nihil]

@@PhilEdwardsInc How about Kinder Surprise Egg? Can't wrap my head around that one as a european.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

@@1989Nihil i'll look into it!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

@@1989Nihil Shoot this has kinda been well-covered on KZbin. It seems to kinda bury the lede (and I always think his sources are a bit loose)...but I might feel redundant. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJfdk5mFZchoh9U

[@danlscan]

Edited: I was mistaken that saccharin is sodium cyclamate. Thanks David for setting me straight. For more information, see the replies. My Grandparent's had saccharin and used it to sweeten their coffee. This was in the 1980's in California. I didn't know they WERE BREAKING THE LAW🙂 Edited to add: I thought it tasted horrible. Sickly sweet with an unpleasant aftertaste.

[@DaveTexas]

Saccharine has never been illegal in the United States. Saccharine is not the same thing as sodium cyclamate. I can’t figure out why so many commenters here don’t know this.

[@danlscan]

@@DaveTexas Indeed. It's easy to get things conflated over the long course of time. Thanks for the reminder to give things a cursory check before adding to the heaping pile of misinformation.

[@rerolledDK]

@@DaveTexas Saccharine probably gets conflated with cyclamate because it was also the victim of questionable studies that showed it to cause cancer. Unlike cyclamate, saccharine wasn't outright banned, but for many years it had a warning label about causing cancer in lab animals.

[@QuestionMan]

SOMETHING'S working to kill me. Something I eat, drink, breathe, or touch and there's no unbiased source of info to guide me through that labyrinth. I remember when coconut oil in my popcorn was gonna make my legs fall off. Then, suddenly, it becomes this elixir of immortality that I need to put in my coffee or my legs will fall off. I just cover the basics and do the best I can, trying not to stress over it (which is FAR more more likely to kill me.)

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

haha i remember that coconut oil thing!

[@kaitlyn__L]

And then it quickly became “it’s worse than lard and will instantly give you a heart attack”! What a merry go round.

[@got2kittys]

It's AIR! Everyone who dies, breathed it all their lives. It's 100% inevitable.

[@phoebeel]

Never trust any wisdoms that are somehow related to esoteric cults. And I say this as a person who is fairly eco-friendly and loves spiritual stuff. But if one of those organic loving, new age hippies talks about something being a-mah-zing for your health out of nowhere then it's probably bs.

[@MaxPower-11]

What’s even more infuriating is that there are instances where the FDA plain refuses to disclose why they took a decision to ban a drug that’s approved in many other countries. An example of this is Dynastat.

[@Silver_Golden]

I wonder if anyone tried to break that Clause by showiung a study that something really basic could cause cancer? Like Milk, or Corn Syryp.....

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

it was weakened a bit in 1996 because it was seen as too strict (that's its own debate though)

[@VIRACYTV]

@@PhilEdwardsInc Bring it. Make it a part 2 of this and use it to show us where the debate stands as of today.

[@Xerofyt]

A lot of very basic things _do_ cause cancer, just not at a rate that you need to be concerned. A number of foods have above-neutral radioactivity -- Banana Equivalent Dose is an actual measure of radioactive exposure, and radiation is definitely a carcinogen. Amines thought to be carcinogenic are generated when heating starches or animal protein, i.e. when cooking food. Cooked food is still, on average, far, far safer than raw food. Eating bananas is, on average, probably healthier than not eating bananas. Governments can and should try to ban excessively debilitating products and additives. "Can cause cancer" is an absurdly broad category if you don't also consider "at what dose?", "to what degree?" and "what type of cancer?", given how common cancer is in humans (and other animals). Ultimately, you are not safe. Something will kill you within the next 100 years. Eating the occasional banana or drinking the occasional cyclamate soda are not going to shift the timeline by a measurable amount. To do that, consider inhaling a carcinogenic mixture of tar and neurotoxins or imbibing a carcinogen that's also a psychoactive depressant: they're both popular and typically legal choices.

[@rayrooney4656]

I recall hearing at the time that the rats were fed a slurry of saccharin and cyclamate and cyclamate was was blamed for the rats' bladder cancer because "everybody knows" the older sweetener was safe. When saccharin was found to also cause the same problem in the early 80s it was dismissed as not being a threat due to the dosage levels used. What changed? Was it saccharin the problem all along? Today they allow Tylenol to be sold despite its incredibly high risk of liver cancer. What gives?

[@BrBill]

100% accurate: Tylenol is deadly. Giving a 2x dose to children even just once can be fatal.

[@meanunclebob1819]

I remember when this happened. My mother ranted about the massive amounts needed to cause cancer in rats. This was at the beginning of the hyper-sweetened breakfast cereal fad that has become the norm and lots of folks from our background were very concerned about the sheer amount of sugar entering children's diets.

[@solracer66]

Cyclamates were used in the very popular Fizzies (imagine something like Crystal Lite that works like an Alka Seltzer) back in the 1960s. I used to have them all the time and they were great. After the ban they switched to saccharin but they weren't the same and they disappeared only to eb revived in the early 2000s only to go out of production again in 2016.

[@jlee4039]

I grew up in Japan with cyclamates. Americans are not missing much. They taste terrible.

[@vulpo]

The USA bans cyclamates while Japan bans aspartame.

[@vanguard812-vf7hr]

lol Americans dont use real sugar. These are just favoritism or bias. They look into sweets all together along with sweeteners. We still have issues like diabetes and a high obesity rate.

[@jeroid123]

@@vanguard812-vf7hr wow tin foil hat much "omg, the sugar is fake everybody"

[@jeroid123]

you are objectively wrong

[@vanguard812-vf7hr]

@@jeroid123 I mean you can look at can of coke its HFCS instead of sugar. So why are you that blind? I have a friend who profits from rich people that buys the coke from Mexico. All he does it buy the coke from Mexico and sell it to the rich people at a higher price. So rich people know what there doing. lol Coke in US is trash.

[@k.5152]

looks like cyclamate got beet 😏

[@jaredgup6537]

I've heard of thalidomide ban but not the cyclamate one! Certainly interesting to see how ostensibly good intentioned legislation, agencies and science can be warped in unforeseen ways.

[@ijchua]

You could do a cover on the state of sunscreens and the FDA - why is much of the world okay with many of the advances in sunscreen chemistry but the US is lagging so far behind?

[@Dead_Goat]

Because the US prefers sunscreen that actually works.

[@jeroid123]

@@Dead_Goat how does that make sense?

[@carrie.m]

The most popular artificial sweetener in my country. My grandmother used it because she had diabetes, but I always hated it. It tastes so sweet and odd🥲🥲 It's so interesting to see how some things are banned in the USA but not anywhere else, but also how some stuff are banned here and fine in any other country (i hope i can try poppy seeds one day).

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

oh poppy seeds!

[@kasugaifox8571]

Go to an American Costco when you can. They have giant poppy seed muffins. Walmart in the States also sells poppy seeds in big jugs. Now I wanna make some muffins. Crap.

[@humanwithaplaylist]

Poppy seeds are legal in pretty sure

[@kaitlyn__L]

Those AI animations are interesting here. Not sure how I feel about it versus just animating a 2-frame mouth on top, though of course I presume it’s faster. The first one worked very well (edit: presumably because it used a 3/4 view as the source), but the second one was creepier than Clutch Cargo techniques! I’ve got Opinions about the rest but everyone else has already said them at least once! There is a whole niche of products either exclusively banned in the US or exclusively available in the US and the reasons are always fascinating, sometimes a lot more frustrating than this too.

[@unicorntulkas]

I wonder if this is somehow at all connected to the US using corn syrup to sweeten almost everything. Here in the EU you'll be hard pressed to find any food item that contains corn syrup.

[@icarusunited]

Most likely is. Corn Syrup is used in so many products, and businesses it's on par with cotton, and tobacco in the 1800s, or even iron, and bronze in the middle ages.

[@AzraelThanatos]

It's more of corn syrup being a stable thing in liquid. When they started bringing back the "Real Sugar" versions of some soft drinks, I can, often tell the difference because you have a slightly more gritty texture due to the sugar settling out of solution there and don't enjoy it as much.

[@Krankie_V]

Corn is very heavily subsidized by the government in the US for multiple reasons. It makes corn syrup really economical.

[@AgentOffice]

No they said beets

[@bobweiram6321]

@@AzraelThanatos What? The real sugar coke is way better! I had it in Europe and it was the best coke I've ever had!

[@sehwagali]

Good video. Loved the new lighting set up as well ❤

[@glenmorrison8080]

I remember reading a paper from a medical doctor like a decade ago going through the history of the US ban on DDT, and it mentioned a lot of this kinds of politics in the decision process. Might be an interesting topic for a video... :)

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

oh i should just do it. i know there's some killer archive of beaches being just carpet bombed with it

[@drastically143]

Yeah they did DDT dirty. Its absolutely not as bad as it was portrait. It started with Rachel Carson and she just simply lied and falsified results of De Witt's experiments if i recall correctly. And she was praised for it, disgusting!

[@puggirl415]

@@PhilEdwardsInc And films of kids running behind DDT trucks getting sprayed with it in the summertime. DDT it's good for you!

[@purplealice]

I remember when I was a kid, my elderly relatives put a little pill in their coffee instead of sugar. (People used saccharin to get around sugar rationing.)

[@contextwithjohnmalone]

Any time I hear “Banned in the USA”but used everywhere else!? My brain immediately says “lobbying money”! Also you should have merch that says “Now with Cyclamate!”

[@oskrm]

Only if the merch doesn't cause or induce cancer in humans or animals

[@maniesh]

Sodium cylamate is cheaper than sugar for the same amount of sweetness, but it doesn't dissolve as easily as sugar. If it's not dissolved properly, it can have an odd aftertaste. It's easy to sweeten most beverages with it, but it's more of a challenge to cook with it and sweeten baked goods for example, in my opinion.

[@Jiggabyte_Alpha]

Cyclamate was banned in my country 🇵🇭 (where it is known as “magic sugar” for being much sweeter than sugar) until 2013.

[@hanbyeol12]

ay naalala ko sa news dati un is it legal now?

[@Jiggabyte_Alpha]

@@hanbyeol12 it’s legal now.

[@pthelo]

The lighting is fabulous in your studio. Your blue shirt against the soft red lighting is 🔥 Lookin' good, Phil!

[@delscoville]

I have diabetes and occasionally hear flack about using Sweet-n-low, etc. I explain to them how using their sweetener can kill me much quicker. I've een using alternative sweetners for more than 30 years now, I've yet to get cancer. Seems like I have everything else, though, but none of it related to sweetner.

[@aintquitewright1480]

When I was in Germany in 1996 as an Abbott Labs employee, I got to taste cyclamate sweetened diet coke. I didn't know there was an Abbott - cyclamate connection at that time.

[@schizoposting9593]

I know that was almost 30 years ago but, how was it?

[@stickinthemud23]

And...?

[@constancestrawn1303]

As soon as I saw the tablet in the thumbnail, I knew exactly what it was. I don't know if this is one of those "cilantro tastes like soap" genetic things, but it tastes horribly bitter to me. I legit can't eat artificially sweeted stuff here. Thankfully we have real sugar sodas here so I'm having a lot better time with my metabolism while still satisfying my sweet tooth without HFCS (which, unfortunately, is in all the good Balkan Fanta)

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

this makes me even more curious to try the soda!

[@constancestrawn1303]

@@PhilEdwardsInc I got DEEP into EU labeling regulations a few years back. My favorite cola is a 49c store brand that boasted its "American taste" and I was worried there was some corn lobby shenanigans afoot. Nope, it is just a bit more syrup than the other brands. HFCS is "Glukose-Fruktose-Sirup" and only sugar is labeled as "Zucker", though it can come from a variety of sources. Beet is most popular here. I'm not avoiding sugar so I don't often come in contact with artificial sweeteners, but the few times I do there's an extra text box (it's not really appropriate to say "warning", but I can't think of another word) that there are artifical sweeteners. My most favorite "Erfrischungsgetränke", though, is Balkan Grape Fanta. It legit tastes like Dimetapp so I can live my childhood dream of slugging down the whole bottle. I finally found one with German labeling, though, and saw it has HFCS. My body just can't hang with HFCS and I'm trying to avoid it. Balkan Shokata also has the HFCS, but the German produced version is Zucker. I am deeply curious as to why, but haven't yet had the time to let myself follow that rabbit...

[@SomePotato]

@@constancestrawn1303 With Coke brands, the local bottlers can decide which sweeteners to use. So having one country bottling with HFCS and another with white sugar isn't that uncommon.

[@morgan0]

afaik, in the acidic conditions in soda, sucrose will break apart and be pretty comparable to HFCS, unless you made it at home and drank it fairly soon after. HFCS is still more glucose than fructose as well, since normal corn syrup is mostly glucose. HFCS isn’t any worse for you than sucrose/glucose/fructose/most other sugars

[@constancestrawn1303]

@@morgan0 I, personally, have issues with HFCS and my health has been a lot better since I have been able to avoid it. My weight has dropped despite no other changes to my diet, my A1C is amazing now even though I satsify my caffeine addiction with 1L of cola per day, and my CRP levels are more manageable. High five to you that you can eat HFCS without issues. It can be really hard to avoid.

[@SamAronow]

9:20 Obligatory mention of Richard Nixon, always a favorite ritual of the channel.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

missed a key impression opportunity :(

[@Bacopa68]

Honestly, I'd prefer a return to the enlightened policies of the Nixon era. He would be the greenest president we could hope for.

[@ryanortega1511]

You should consider a new series: 'Banned in America'.

[@maggikpunkt]

Getting the store brand of the banned product. Very nice and financially responsible.

[@dkpqzm]

I remember those Sucaryl bottles, they had pointed tips so you could shake it out. Has anybody ever done a study where they give rats 100x the average amount of sugar?

[@I_enjoy_some_things]

Yeah we have done those experiments: they all turned into “Body Positive” Twitter users.

[@roucoupse]

I think saccharine is banned in most European countries except a few ones like Germany.

[@Szylepiel]

Love the AYDS section of the video! Hahaha

[@UlisesShah]

The FDA also did this with mustard oil.

[@tookitogo]

“No bitter aftertaste” my eye! I live in Europe, and I find cyclamate to be nearly as bitter as saccharine. The only artificial sweetener that is truly palatable to me is sucralose. (Aspartame is… tolerable.)

[@Jirka-j2g]

Stevia and xylitol are imo superior. Although they’re not sensu stricto artificial, they serve the same purpose (low/no calorie and sweet). They don’t taste bitter, only xylitol is has kind of a minty-cold aftertaste, that is barely noticeable in a coffee. Also artificial sweeteners are unusable in baking, while stevia is. Try it

[@tookitogo]

@@Jirka-j2g I’ve tried stevia, it still tastes weird to me. I’ve been meaning to try xylitol.

[@Demasx]

I see and appreciate your added production value in making Sveda and Delaney "speak" 👍😊

[@eduardoeller183]

Great video as always

[@danielschmatz2291]

In Austria was a big fight about Stevia a few years ago as the goverments sugar monopolist did a very abuses ad campane against Stevia - sounds similar...

[@Thebreakdownshow1]

Nothing better than a Phil Edwards video on a sunday morning.

[@beastmastreakaninjadar6941]

Yeah. I've never really had the need to avoid sugar but when I was a kid Sugar Twin with cyclamates was a really good substitute that I actually liked. If we were out of sugar, my mom always had some Sugar Twin around. Even though I didn't need it, it was annoying when it was taken off the market. It hasn't been until recently that sugar substitutes without a bad aftertaste or flavor component for me have become available now that I'm trying to avoid as much high fructose corn syrup as possible. But I still wish they'd lift the ban on cyclamates.

[@murdockscott]

Here is the thing, I recall the taste of that stuff and it was NASTY. I am a super taster and may not be representative of the average person, but for me, it tasted awful. Hopefully it’s been improved in the places it is still available. Currently I use liquid monk fruit to sweeten tea and I am quite happy with it. In my opinion, political and corporate motivations are a good reason to avoid food additives as much as you can. It’s hard to know who is paying for any publicized research and why they might be saying that it is safe, or not. It seems unlikely that your health is the main focus for the actions of the people involved.

[@DaveTexas]

I’m 99% sure you’re talking about saccharine. Saccharine is bitter and tastes terrible to everyone. Sodium cyclamate is the sweetener being discussed in this video, and it is not nasty. Sodium cyclamate is NOT THE SAME THING as saccharine. Unless you’re over the age of 60, you will not be able to "recall" the taste of sodium cyclamate - and that’s if you were using artificial sweeteners as a toddler. Were you born before 1963 or thereabouts? Or are you yet another internet liar who is neither a "super taster" nor someone who has the intellectual capacity to understand what the basic premise of this video is about? Oh, and no one over the age of 50 can be a "super taster," since the human body loses too many taste receptors by that age to have the ability to taste more flavors than an average 20-year-old can taste. If you’re over 50 and claiming to be a "super taster," we all know you’re lying.

[@robkorczak]

It's fascinating that the exact same thing just played out in the W.H.O. in regards to Aspartame. I mean word for word, study for study, the exact same thing except this time not in the U.S.

[@ZuperZocker]

4:17 "DDT is good for me-e-e!" oof that didn't age well

[@jennalawlor7407]

Brilliantly produced! Well done :)

[@Mahbeiserts]

Great format! I really enjoyed the lightside/darkside, science/politics separation. Awesome presentation as always

[@Butterstuffs]

Sugar is a large commodity and the FDA makes a ton of money in sugar made from beets in the US.

[@spamemael5129]

I'm mind blown by the production of this video. First time viewer and immediately subbed in the first 5 mins.

[@lukerinderknecht2982]

Yeah this one is great!

[@philibeansor5843]

Congratulations 🎊 perhaps a part two, how and where cyclamates are created from, other countries regulation of the sweetener, any testing performed outside of the USA, posable links to health risks- you know a modern approach and less of a 60 + year old history with corporate conflict from the sugar lobby 😮

[@petuniasevan]

We used to pick up cyclamate when on vacation in Canada in the 1970s. No law against that, fortunately. I still miss the only artificial sweetener that was worth a damn.

[@scpatl4now]

Aspartame in my opinion is far more of a health risk than many of the other artificial sweeteners. In essence, no of them are good for you at all.

[@BrBill]

There is one specific time that your opinion is correct: aspartame is extremely dangerous to people with phenylketonuria, as they cannot process the protein phenylanaline. But those people already can't safely eat a lot of other things, like beef, so they are already on alert.

[@MaverickBlue42]

I bet it's a lot safer than aspartame, you know, the one that breaks down into formaldehyde when digested or heated...

[@daniel_wilkinson]

Before I even start watching... it's about the sugar, isn't it? I've known that big sugar pushed HARD to get taken off the addictive substances list and pushed just as hard to get included in virtually everything we eat.

[@cannedmusic]

According to the Delaney Clause, salt and sugar both need to be taken off the market; both have been linked to cancer and one to diabetes. As well as a few artificial food colorants including red #40 and yellow #3. Of course, there have been a lot of deaths linked to excessive dihydrogen monoxide.

[@JaykPuten]

And to think, at the same time they were touting 0 calorie sweeteners(50s), doctors will still RXing amphetamine to housewives for energy and weight loss Also fun fact, with aspartame still causes your body to release insulin, and can still cause diabetes... Another great video Phil, always picking interesting topics I didn't know I was interested in until after I hear about them

[@vulpo]

Actually, it is a fun myth. Aspartame does not effect insulin levels.

[@JaykPuten]

@@vulpo really? I actually believe I read it in a medical journal, however; given I'm not a doctor, and only read that stuff when my wife was becoming a nurse, I could be totally wrong and thinking of another non sugar/corn syrup sweetner And rule one of having a nurse spouse Never wake them And have their caffeine ready when they wake And the rule one of KZbin is to never use Google So maybe I stand corrected I probably am wrong... I don't use artificial sweeteners But I also like drink Pepsi with sugar in glass bottles from Nicaragua like a fish porque el mercado local los tiene.

[@BrBill]

@@vulpo Came here to point out the same. That insulin level claim was indeed debunked years ago but like all garbage science its claims live on.

[@mydogpeaches1]

my grandmother would always bring this special sweetener home from norway when she went home years ago as you could not get the sweetener here and she liked to use it in her tea and coffee instead of sugar

[@Kyranio]

I like it that the coffee sweetener you used during the video is something I have in my kitchen cabinet for whenever guests would come over in case they want that in their coffee or tea etc, but that it's banned in the US... But in Europe we still widely use sugar as well. I always enjoy these old "this stuff is really bad, so we made this very chemical and untested alternative that is probably better!" solutions to usually made-up or rather exaggerated problems, they seem to be very prominent during the 20th century.

[@josephkanowitz6875]

ב''ה, for a while at least, tablet forms of saccharin and the other approved sweeteners were available recently in US. Perhaps the cyclamate concerns were one reason these weren't fashionable for a few decades, and for the moment they were on the market it was fairly known it was using the European-style packaging equipment.

[@cee8mee]

My brother was a type 1 diabetic since 5 years old. In '69 he was 17 and very angsty about being different. He used sucaryl daily for cereal and when it was banned and he had to switch to saccharin. He wasn't happy as the latter has a very noticeable after taste.

[@btarg1]

MSG is one of those things where food products are proud to be free of it, whilst it's not something very harmful to humans. This kinda reminds me of that

[@KiMoKo9787]

The majority of people don't know that it's naturally occurring in a lot of food, they just lack the time and effort to actually research what they show in and what they commonly eat 🤦

[@runed0s86]

A very small minority of people have adverse reactions to Monosodium Glutamate. My dad and sister have this, but I don't. It's probably something genetic. There are also allergies for tree nuts, peanuts, and some fruits.

[@medes5597]

​@@runed0s86it's never been proven. It's possible but multiple independent studies couldn't find the alleged bad response to msg occurring. What they did find was people who claimed to have it even when there was no msg in their food. Suggesting it was a placebo (or nocebo in this case). I'm sure msg allergies exist. But right now there's no evidence do the alleged "head ache and such"

[@Butterandbacon]

People complain about MSG being bad while chomping on Doritos. It's ridiculous.

[@turtle7043]

i love abusing my kidneys!!!!!!!!!

[@riftwytch]

I remember drinking Goofy Grape and the other flavors. I didn't realize they went off the market because of cyclamates.

[@peterjamesfoote3964]

Kinder toys anyone? So I’m old enough to be just at the age that had to read Silent Spring for 7th grade science class. The case for DDT poisoning the environment was much less controversial. But I clearly remember the brou ha ha ha ha ha ha and marketing wars around cyclamates cyclamates surrounding enough to predict that this was going to be the topic of your video. It seemed to happen after the grape boycott and before the DDT fixes got in, Thank you for a well done report.

[@AxelWerner]

sorry! You can't have Kinder Egg Toys in the USA. Not even as an adult. It's just too damn dangerous!!! But you can have a neat pink assault Rifle for your little kids with high cap magazine, no problem. MUCH BETTER since you cannot choke on that.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@AxelWerner I wonder if anyone has challenged that since a lone bullet is pretty choke hazardous. But it’s not sold in food. So probably not. Edge cases in American regulations are fascinating to me, probably because federal government has such high inertia so it takes much longer to adjust than a lot of other places

[@drastically143]

Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring just lied and misrepresented / falsified results of De Witts experiments with DDT. And some other stuff wasn't right in that book if i remember correctly. It was a moral panic and disgusting manipulation. DDT wasn't that bad as it was portrait and later research uncovered o plethora of interesting things about DDT and environment.

[@peterjamesfoote3964]

@@drastically143 I’m completely unable to evaluate this statement of yours. It’s worth looking back on but I thought the DDT and Bird egg nest problem was well documented. I was 12 when I read the book. That was a bvery long time ago.

[@drastically143]

@@peterjamesfoote3964 Thank you for your answer. I understand that i didn't provide any proofs for my statements, thats my bad. Sadly i don't have much on my hands and in my notebooks right now. Anyway, by the egg nest problem you men the thinning? If yes, it's true, but It was better researched and understood later and not at that time. Much later DDT was found to cause egg shell thinning and embryo mortality. However, different groups of birds vary greatly in their sensitivity to DDT: birds of prey show the greatest sensitivity, and in natural conditions pronounced shell thinning can often be found, while chicken eggs are relatively insensitive. Due to omissions in Carson's book, most of the experimental studies were performed on species insensitive to DDT (such as quail), which often showed little or no shell thinning. So with her book she kinda sabotaged research paths. Also, for example, she wrote: «Dr. DeWitt's now classic experiments on the effect of a series of insecticides on quail and pheasants have established the fact that exposure to DDT or related chemicals, even when doing no observable harm to the parent birds, may seriously affect reproduction. The way the effect is exerted may vary, but the end result is always the same. For example, quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs. But few of the eggs hatched». The fact is that only 80% of quail eggs hatched from high DDT-containing food (i.e., 0.02 ppm;and this is huge, the maximum allowable concentration of DDT for eggs in the Western Block was 0.1 ppm, for example) but 83.9% hatched from eggs of control quail fed in a diet free of DDT. Thus, the difference between the quails fed with DDT and the control group was only 3.9 %, which made it impossible to conclude the effect of DDT on reproductive function in birds.

[@CAMacKenzie]

I'm old enough to remember what cyclamate flavored sodas tasted like. Better than saccharine, but still not good. Stevia has it beat all hollow, but still isn't quite right. Sugar imparts a texture to things that any of the artificial (or, in the case of stevia, almost natural) sweeteners lack.

[@Mix1mum]

This is super random but does anyone know the name of the font used inside UpBeet? At 7:24? I've been trying to find that font for a good year to no avail.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

WhatTheFont shows a bunch of possibilities but I don't have sharp enough an eye to find the exact one. Have you used it? You can upload a screenshot.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@PhilEdwardsInc such an underrated tool, I’m glad it’s still going. I got the early iPhone app in 09, font identification on the road babey! There were a few times I was on 2G and waited 10 minutes to upload the photo and view the results. On 3G it was only a few seconds at least.

[@Mix1mum]

@Phil Edwards Wow, that site is a gem, I had no idea! Thank you for sharing that with me! And I see what you mean about the discerning eye, holy cow. I *think* I've found it, or one that will suffice for my needs (which is bringing a product to print) , in 'news-gothic bold'. That hyphen was pretty important in the title, strangely. Something about the cold war era typeface just resonates with me, specifically, the sterility of the lettering, with what feels like a bit of inkbleed, close together yet with exaggerated spacing, as if from a worn typewriter. Idk. It's like it brings me to an ethereal ennui, or a liminal place of a bored, cold soldier stuck at a post for 12hrs a day for the 27th day in a row. Maybe thats how I died in a past life. Maybe I was just some NPC guard on duty in Goldeneye. Who's to say? 🤣

[@Juliodax]

My father tell me this story many years ago!!! Yes, here in Argentina!!!

[@caesar7734]

0:38 It is banned because it expires on a date that doesn’t exist in the US.

[@spicysmooth2]

When I went to Germany I had a cyclamate sweetner in one of my coffees. It was so neat and convenient to have a sweetner in pill form, as opposed to a sachet. Didn’t know why I never saw one in the US until now.

[@christophermiller3031]

As a canadian who loves poutine... It is avsurd to me that cheese curds are technically illegal in usa lol. You cannot make a proper poutine without cheese curds!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

Oh I see, if they're unpasteurized? I was in Wisconsin where we def. had our version of cheese curds.

[@joylox]

As a dairy intolerant Canadian I'd disagree, but it's also interesting to see how farmers affected things here, like making dairy part of the food pyramid for years, when so many like myself, can't have one or more parts of milk products. They still really push it. I remember someone saying "if you see an ad for something, that means you don't really need it," and I think that's pretty true with how many Canadian Milk ads I've seen on bus stops, movie theatres, and online. Another thing that goes through a different process is kombucha and some places require it to be dealcoholized which doesn't always work.

[@christophermiller3031]

@@PhilEdwardsInc thx Phil for the reply! last time I googled myself into a rabbit hole, I believe it is the type of fresh cheese (as you said) is not permittable to be sent to US... ah! there is my oversight! if you have the time, I am curious as to what local dishes they make with the fresh curds in Wisconsin? or is it simply eaten curd to mouth? my favorite curd to mouth is cheese curds that get tossed in a dressing for potato chips... mmmm... BBQ seasoning cheese curds 🖖

[@christophermiller3031]

@@joylox I for one come from a household who love milk... being Scottish, my body digests milk, potato, meat, bread, cheese, and I am a healthy lad with a regular #2. hehe. obvy as Canada continues to get more and more multicultural... the milk market won't appeal to as many Canadians.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

@@christophermiller3031 Yeah I've only seen it just as a snack, but I'm not a very good Wisconsinite. They're a bit intense for me.

[@Geeksmithing]

Camera slider! 🎉😂 Great vid Phil!!

[@tomsherwood4650]

Diet soda had cyclamate in it when I was a kid. Then they banned it and saccarine replaced it in soda. Saccarine tested awful in comparison. Sort of a bittersweet in comparison. Cyclamates really tasted like sugar sweetener.

[@timkennedy1192]

Your vids must be one of the hardest to produce, but SO worth it!!

[@direlando446]

The absolute brilliance of the AYDS joke earned a sub from me.

[@DanDoerfler]

Phil you should do a video on the food pyramid and how the government sets "what we should eat"

[@RussellD11]

If its banned HERE, then someone is profiting from it NOT being legal here...

[@JannesJustus]

Was literally just thinking about your videos today and here we go, a new one 🤩

[@VampirePumpkins]

Sugar manufacturing groups being partly responsible makes so much sense to me. Sugar companies were also behind the low-fat craze.

[@HeyHey_HC]

On related note - hope you’ll tackle the raw milk cheese ban too!

[@Luzonyoutube]

“In Europe and elsewhere” love it

[@asicdathens]

BVO (of Mountain Dew fame) is still allowed by FDA. BVO was initially marketed for flame retardant

[@M10000]

I've had cyclamate and I love it! I drank Tab, Diet Pepsi, and Fresca in the sixties by choice! I didn't like regular soda because diet soda was much better. I cried when they took it out of soda. I miss it to this day! I drank lots of Funny Face too! Chinese Cherry became Choo Choo Cherry. I can't remember what Injun Orange became. I do remember the horror of saccharin!

[@pjaypender1009]

OMG cyclamates are what made Tab Tab in the 60s! I miss Tab...

[@gonnfishy2987]

Me too

[@IDK_Mr.M]

My grandmother had lost of them when i was a little kid.

[@sparkycjb]

Every time I hear something new about Nader; it's obvious he did not properly test and compare. Seemed more worried about being in the lime light than actual outcomes. The 'Vair was just as safe, or unsafe as any vehicle at that time and price point.

[@oo0Spyder0oo]

BS, he made the car industry make their death cars much safer, a lot of people have lived due to the safety they had to install, and they didn’t like it.

[@sparkycjb]

@@oo0Spyder0oo I'm not saying he didn't. But more recently several cars from the same price range, size, and approximate HP were tested against the Corvair. They all did equally poorly and were all equally unsafe.

[@carnation_cat]

11:24 Yes, we have other sweeteners, but NONE that taste as good or are as safe and versatile as cyclamate. My experience goes way back to the 80s when I was trying to do Atkins (which of course was the most popular low-carb plan in the 70s and beyond). Atkins and other diet doctors bemoaned the loss of cyclamate, as it tasted great. I put up with saccharin for years but never liked it, but in the early 2000s when Atkins had a revival and everything was now online--Yahoo groups, bulletin boards, etc. for low-carbing--I found out I could order Sugar Twin from Canada which is sodium cyclamate instead of sodium saccharin as it is in the US. I ordered several boxes to make it worth shipping, and tasted it for the first time. It was just as good as "they" said. 🙂 People couldn't tell that it wasn't sugar, if I gave them something I made. I used Canadian Sugar Twin for years, and then found other options like those German tablets you show in the video. My mom went to England and liked the Natreen tablets which are very similar, and brought home a couple boxes, then English friends brought us more when we wanted them. I recently ordered the German "Mivolis" from Amazon, and also in a local ethnic grocery store I found a Brazilian product "Zero Cal" which is a liquid form of the same sweeteners. You can also order that from Amazon. I don't like that all of these mix cyclamate with saccharin, but at least the saccharin seems to be low enough to not affect the taste much. I've used stevia over the years as well, but honestly it has a worse aftertaste than any of the artificial sweeteners! And in commercial products they always use at least twice as much as they should. The sodas are horribly sweet, for example, and only have a chance to taste good if you mix them 50/50 with unsweetened seltzer. I can only tolerate stevia in iced tea if I very carefully dust a bit over the top, stir and taste, dust a bit more, etc. If you use JUST enough to have a bit of sweetness, there's no bitterness or aftertaste. Stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar, so that's a substance to be handled with care! Sorry for the ramble! Maybe it will help someone who is looking for a good sweetener. Obviously the best option is nothing sweet at all, but I have found that when I am trying to break the sugar addiction, I can switch to artificial sweeteners for a while and it gets me through, and then eventually I lose my desire for the sweet taste. Those of us who have been in low-carb (now keto) groups for years have seen the debate about whether artificial sweeteners raise insulin, thus provoking sugar cravings and causing the body to store fat, and I've seen the experts come down on both sides of this issue so it's confusing. I think the last conclusion I saw was that it causes problems for some but not all of us. As always, things are more complex than we want them to be. 🙄

[@stummyhort]

brought a bunch of these back from switzerland and had no idea they were banned in the US! great video

[@chanpasadopolska]

Make Cyclamates Great Again!

[@GeeTrieste]

I've tried cyclamate in Canada. And I found it superior to most other artificial sweeteners.