These Artificial Sweeteners Were Made By Accident

Throughout history, there have been plenty of accidental inventions, from microwaves to X-rays to the Slinky (via InventionLand). You might not know that sweeteners you eat all the time often had unexpected creations, too — and sometimes, they're very different from their originally intended uses as insecticides or fever medicines.

Why make a sugar substitute in the first place? Though we now know that sugar substitutes can increase your chances of gaining weight (via Smithsonian), excessive amounts of standard sugar can cause weight gain and health issues such as Type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart problems. Indeed, doctors have long suggested that people should cut back on the amounts of sugar and fat in their diets. But since that isn't much fun, researchers are always looking for the next best delicious, harmless, and calorie-free substance. This has historically led people to try and find healthier sugar alternatives, starting all the way back in 1879.

In 1937, the next big breakthrough in artificial sugar also happened completely by accident. At the University of Illinois, a graduate student named Michael Sveda was trying to create a drug to lower fevers. He took a smoke break and realized that his hand smelled and tasted sweet. The chemical, cyclamate, is roughly 30 to 50 times sweeter than ordinary sugar (via Saveur).

While originally intended for use in diabetics, it became a staple in tons of foods, including chocolate, candy, jelly, cereal, toothpaste, and salad dressing (via Cyclamate Information Center). Cyclamate's rollout had great timing, too, because diet soda was becoming a fad in the 1950s. It rapidly became America's top-selling artificial sweetener and was used in popular drinks like Diet Pepsi and Tab. It was also the main ingredient in Sweet'N Low. 

According to the Sweet'N Low website, Ben Eisenstadt and his wife dined at a restaurant, and his wife commented on how unsanitary the fly-swarmed sugar bowl on the table must be. Inspired by her idea, Eisenstadt used a tea-bag machine to create single-serve packets of Sweet'N Low. They trademarked the idea in 1957, and by 1963, the product hit grocery stores throughout the U.S.

But the hype didn't last. Scientists realized that in high doses, the chemical gave lab rats bladder cancer. Cyclamate was banned by the FDA in 1970, and manufacturers had to quickly pivot to other artificial sweeteners after the ban, which remains in place to this day. 

As Science Direct reports, sucralose was first discovered in 1976 when a sugar company based in Britain was testing chemicals in order to transform sucrose into a sugar substitute or additive. They created a sweetener that was 450 to 650 times sweeter than sugar while containing zero calories, and they never would have discovered this if it weren't for a small miscommunication between scientists. One researcher, Shashikant Phadnis, was told to "test" sucralose, a chemical that was supposed to be a new insecticide. But instead, Phadnis thought his coworker said to "taste" it (via Wise Geek). He ate some, and luckily, the substance was very sweet and not hazardous.

It was approved by the FDA in 1998 for use as a "tabletop sweetener" and got approval to be used in desserts and nonalcoholic drinks. Sucralose became the main ingredient in Splenda and is a popular additive to gum, breakfast cereals, and sodas. As Saveur reports, sucralose differs from early sweeteners because you can cook and bake with it. Interestingly, the substance is so sweet that researchers even found that when pregnant people ingested sucralose, their breast milk became sweeter.