How Do Diet Drinks Have Zero Calories? 🥤
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It’s 5AM on a Smart Nonsense school day.
Crack open a Diet Coke, would ya?
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/64f130e93511c2ddaa8f48eb_2.webp)
Because today we’re learning how diet drinks have zero calories.
Let’s take it back to 1879.
John Hopkins University.
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Or is it Johns* Hopkins?
Johns Hopkins University.
Johns Hopkins University.
Ya, that’s right.
Johns.
The plural of John.
Totally fine.
So at Johns Hopkins University we’ve got this russian chemist – Constantin Fahlberg.
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And Constantin is in the lab hunting for new chemicals that can be used as dyes and medicines.
He’s working with coal tar compounds – a thick, black liquid you get from the gas of burning coal.
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Which is funny, because that’s exactly where I’d be looking for new medicines too.
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Constantin had discovered anhydroorthosulphaminebenzoic acid.
But don’t worry, you never need to pronounce that.
Because he called his anhydroorthosulphaminebenzoic acid compound saccharin [SAK-a-rinn]
Aka the beauties you’ll find on the table at your favorite breakfast spot:
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/64f130e9c86adc2064b85e3d_13.webp)
The first artificial sweetener.
A colorless, odorless compound 200 times sweeter than sugar.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/64f130ea79367e06da66e578_14.webp)
Oh and unlike sugar, saccharin has 0 calories.
How?
Great question.
When you eat sugars, you know you start salivating like a monkey that’s been allowed to climb on a human woman.
That’s because your saliva contains an enzyme called amylase.
And amylase is really great at breaking down sugar into glucose – a type of sugar the body can use for energy ⚡
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/64f130ea33841170e68f0522_15.webp)
But the artificial sweetener Saccharin was invented by a Russian chemist.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/64f130ea0996c74bb0ffb264_16.webp)
It’s a synthetic compound.
There’s no enzyme in the human body that recognizes it and wants to break it down.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/64f130eb735be360f45370bf_17.webp)
The Russian artificial sweetener tastes sweet, then just passes through your digestive system unchanged.
You pee it out.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/64f130ea79367e06da66e58c_18.webp)
0 calories.
And 150 years later, saccharin is still found on diner tabletops next to your Diet Coke filled with another artificial sweetener – aspartame.
![](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/649aa49e57793ed61ecbd3fd/64f130eb79367e06da66e59c_19.webp)
Stay Cute,
Henry & Dylan 🌈
If you’re that sexy friend, subscribe here.
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Morning sweet tooth!
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