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The Sweetest Thing

What is the sweetest thing in the world?
Duration
34m
Broadcast on
18 Sep 2026
Audio Format
other

“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

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RIDILEB is supported by AT&T. We all love to connect via video calls or texts. Right now, at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade-in. Any condition. It has the ultimate pro camera system and big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone for the new iPhone 18 Pro requires trade-in of iPhone 14 or higher, excluding iPhone 16E, an eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply, subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. Alright, so lots of what are we doing today? We're going to go on a hunt that actually starts in my car. I was with my two kids. I think at that point, my kids were six and three maybe, and the U2 song, "The Sweetest Thing" comes on. Do you know that song? Of course. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Yeah, of course. It's a bop. Yeah, it's my favorite of their songs. Yeah. And my kids who have never heard the song for it, they're listening to the song, and they love. Were you like, "Love?" Yeah, no. My kids, they don't care about that. They were just like, "No, no, no, but what really is the sweetest thing?" So just, "What's the sweetest thing I can get in my mouth?" Yeah. They're kids. They love sugar. Yeah, of course. Right now they're obsessed with gummy bears, and they just wanted to know, "Is there some other thing out there we've never had before that's even sweeter?" Hmm. So I figured like, "I'm a journalist, I can answer this." Well, lots of bless, you're amazing children who I adore. Do you care about this question? Yeah.

Transcription truncated.

What is the sweetest thing in the world?