There are four artificial sweeteners which make up the “Big Four”: cyclamate, aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose. You may have used these artificial sweeteners in your coffee; you also have consumed them with soft drinks, candy, dairy products, and baked goods. There was a time in which artificial sweeteners were all the rage, and actually had insane amounts of marketing around them. We’re going to talk about that timeline in this article.
Saccharin was the first artificial sweetener to become popular. Saccharin is actually just the latin word for sugar. It was discovered (on accident) in 1897 by a researcher at John Hopkins University named Constantin Fahlberg who was dealing with coal tar derivative benzoic sulfmide. Before lunch he didn’t wash his hands tasted something on his fingers which was sweet. This sweet compound would later be named saccharin, which was 300x sweeter than sugar.
In 1901, the saccharin market really got started by Monsanto beginning to sell it. By 1910, saccharin had been used in soft drinks and even food. Saccharin in the past had been accused of being toxic, and was facing a ban. Yet, President Theodore Roosevelt veto’d that from happening.. until 1912. It was officially banned in 1912, although returned when saccharin was needed to be used as a sugar replacement in World War I.
Cyclamate was discovered in 1937 when a University of Illinois Grad Student was working on a fever-cure. He tasted something sweet on his hand during a smoke break which later became the compound cyclamate. It was 50x sweeter than sugar. In the 1950s cyclamate was used in diet sodas, and Sweet’N Low. Cyclamate was marketed as “Americas favorite sweetener” because of the cheap price and zero calories. Later on, by 1970 the sweetener was said to cause bladder cancer and was banned by the FDA.
Research Chemist James Schlatter was developing a new ulcer drug 1965 and just as the cyclamate and saccharin founders, tasted something sweet on his fingers which later became the compound aspartame. It is said to be 200x sweeter than sugar. Early on this compound was said to cause brain tumors. After research showed that it was safe to use, it launched in 1981 as Nutrasweet. Diet Coke was made with aspartame, which sky rocketed the use of this sweetener through the 80s and 90s.
Scientists found a way to molecularly bound sucrose with chlorine in 1976. A misheard statement by a colleague made another eat the compound. This compound was sucralose. It’s 600x sweeter than sugar. You may have heard of sucralose, just not by it’s original name. The name that sucralose is marketed by now, is Splenda. This was the first of the artificial sweeteners that could be baked with.
