Hello and welcome to Zoe Shorts, the Bite Size podcast where we discuss one topic around

science and nutrition. I'm Jonathan Wolfe and as always I'm joined by Dr Sarah Berry.

Today's subject is artificial sweetness.

So Jonathan artificial sweetness is everywhere, not just in diet soft drinks as many of us

think but they're throughout all kinds of processed foods and actually maybe in some

places that you wouldn't even expect. As they become widespread, peat will naturally

have lots of questions about how they compare to natural sugars.

And there have been years of conflicting studies so I think there's a lot to clear up about

these sugaral tonators. Yeah absolutely and I think we can shed some light on the most important

benefits and also the potential risks of these sweetness.

Brilliant, well let's go.

We did some research and it turns out the first synthetic sweetener to really make an

impact globally was saccharine. It was discovered by accident in 1879 when a Russian chemist

was studying coal and tar. Now the story goes that he was working with his chemicals, got

a little on his hand and decided to give it a taste. And Eureka, we have our first sugar

alternative which sounds like a very risky way for a chemist to behave. I'm a little

skeptical that this is really the story but there you go and within a few years it had

hit the market and was widely used during World War One because sugar was in short supply.

Great, I didn't know that Jonathan, really interesting. So it didn't actually stop

after World War One, the development of sweeteners. There were more that were invented or discovered

and they've become a really regular part of our diet as manufacturers have started to

include them for some time now. In more of the food and drink we regularly consume

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