The Sweetest Thing

from Radiolab · host WNYC Studios

“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 clusters EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latif Nasser with help from - Jessica Yung, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Jessica Yung, Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, and Natalia Ramirez Produced by - Jessica Yung with help from - Mona Madgavkar, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Gabby Santas, and Maia Appleby Melamed with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom Fact-checking by - Sophie Samiee and 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 Twilley The Search for Sweet (https://zpr.io/JmeDkVhrd2dK) by Burkhard Bilger How My Trip to Quit Sugar Became A Journey Into Hell (https://zpr.io/ni6xgC38Qmyf) by Caity Wever How Much of Our Existence Do We Owe to Sugar? (https://zpr.io/M2py48SxnQAT) by Jackie Flynn Mogensen Scientists Find Sugar In Space (https://zpr.io/e94UtUuhPtbT) by Rebecca Dzombak Sign 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 [email protected]. 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.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Sep 18, 2026

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The Sweetest Thing

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