“What is the sweetest thing in the world?” After co-host Latif Nasser’s sons ask him this deceptively simple question, he goes on a quest to find it. Is it a West African Katemfe berry? Or an industrial sugar substitute cooked up in a lab? Or an ingredient hiding in plain sight in all of our pantries? A simple mystery that will make you question what sweetness even is, how our tongues (and other body parts you wouldn’t expect) determine what we like, and how far you would go to taste something sweeter than anyone has ever experienced. Thank you to Latif’s sons for indulging us, to Nicola Twilley and Cynthia Graber at Gastropod, to Anni Laffitte, Nazli Parvizi at Museum of Food and Drink, to food icons Claire Saffitz and Sam Seneveratne who did a live show version of this episode with us at the Tribeca Festival. And thank you to Davy Gardner and his wonderful team of audio folks at the Tribeca Festival. Thank you to Jialin Deng who composed the song that was our ‘sonic seasoning’. And to Laura Rickman and everyone else at Columbia University’s Mortimer B Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute for hosting us. And big thanks to experimental psychologist Charles Spence at Oxford, sweetness chemist Grant DuBois, Danielle Reed at Monell Chemical Senses Center, and nutritional scientist Sarah Berry at King’s College London who all talked to us about their research. And Brian Everett of Honest Organic Farms.And a very special thanks to Sean Oomens, inventor of producer Jess Yung’s favorite candy, nerd gummy clustersEPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasserwith help from - Jessica Yung, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Jessica Yung, Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, and Natalia RamirezProduced by - Jessica Yung with help from - Mona Madgavkar, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Gabby Santas, and Maia Appleby Melamedwith mixing help from - Jeremy BloomFact-checking by - Sophie Samieeand Edited by - Pat Walters EPISODE CITATIONS: Videos: Youtuber Chemiolis tried to make Luguduname himself (https://zpr.io/MmUbGfwwFrFH) Articles - Race to Redesign Sugar (https://zpr.io/VpsMxfPRbxaz) by Nicola TwilleyThe Search for Sweet (https://zpr.io/JmeDkVhrd2dK) by Burkhard BilgerHow My Trip to Quit Sugar Became A Journey Into Hell (https://zpr.io/ni6xgC38Qmyf) by Caity WeverHow Much of Our Existence Do We Owe to Sugar? (https://zpr.io/M2py48SxnQAT) by Jackie Flynn MogensenScientists Find Sugar In Space (https://zpr.io/e94UtUuhPtbT) by Rebecca DzombakSign up for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Signup (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing radiolab@wnyc.org. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
