The sugar alcohol in those infamous sugar free gummy bears was maltitol. Turns out there’s pretty good evidence that if you stuck to a reasonable number of those gummy bears, you wouldn’t experience any negative side effects: www.nature.com/articles/1601516

Sam!!! Good to see you again! (Also does that make me a hardcore fan?)

LA Beast demonstrated this when he tried to eat an entire giant bag of sugar free gummies only to explosively eject those gummies later and yes that part is captured on video lmao.

"what's the flavour" "intestinal distress"

I can't believe we didn't talk about how addictive sucralose is!

My hospital actually stocks the Haribo sugar free gummy bears in 50% more to 150% more than the serving size portions than recommended on the package for the doctors who are in the know for treating those with constipation that doesn't respond to stool softeners before turning to pharmaceutical laxatives. Also, the GI provider that I use recommends patients to consume the entire bag (the smaller but multi serving package, not the single serving mini packets) the day of drinking the foul colon prep solution as a kick start to cleaning out the colon for colonoscopies with one key instruction- DON'T eat the red ones. So many of the patients (myself included) who know about these are not entirely a fan of them but we will eat them if it means we avoid the pharmaceutical options. However, us patients of the GI provider will agree (begrudgingly though) to eat these bastards the morning of the colon prep solution day (this starts about 4pm the night before the scoping) because it pretty much means that we, typically, will only need half to three quarters the amount of the awful colon prep solution which is something that all of his patients have agreed is even more foul. Although, I personally will drink two cups of hot tea (I let it cool down first though) made with lactulose for the sweetener as an added help in cleaning the colon because I then only need a bit under half of the colon prep solution. So yeah, the Haribo sugar free gummy bears have a place in society but I don't believe it should be in the candy aisle of stores and instead either behind the pharmacy counter w/o a prescription or with the laxatives with a warning letter on the shelf next to the price tag.

The most surprising thing about sweeteners was shown very well in the end of the video - opinions on how good they taste or how close to sugar they are - are all over the place. xD One thing I can totally agree with is the Stevia aftertaste... I don't completely abhor it, but it's definitely there and it's definitely very strong. While it's not gag inducing to me, the problem is that it's so strong it kinda kills the taste of anything you use it on. Perhaps not too bad if you are using it in a complex recipe, but as I mostly use sweeteners for coffee and tea, plain without milk or cream.... that just doesn't work well. As for other common sweeteners... I mostly don't feel much of a difference. I think I have a slight preference towards aspartame, but not sure if I'd be able to tell the difference in a blind taste test. But aspartame and cyclamate are the ones I drink the most... because it's what Coke Zero and Light uses, and I'm addicted to those. :P People will say some sweeteners gives them headaches, some will say they can definitely taste the difference between different types... for the most part I personally can't - again, apart from Stevia. The most common stuff you can find on supermarkets here are cyclamate, sucralose, aspartame, and Stevia... but I've also seen thaumatin, xylitol, erythritol and mixes of a couple of those. Oh, I've also been using sweeteners for most of my adult life (I'm not diabetic) and never had any problems... but I've definitely had a few cases of the laxative effect. Can't remember the exact product though, but it was very likely a similar thing to the Gummy Bear case - sugar alcohol, I ate too much of it. I had a pretty strong suspicion that it was something about the sweetener not breaking down in my body and ending up in quantities large enough in my intestines that it was causing discomfort and diarrhea, but I wasn't totally sure, so thanks for the lesson! xD It's because the other semi-related thing I have is lactose intolerance, so I know the feeling very well when things don't break down as they should and end up in the intestines fermenting and whatnot. xD

10:45 dont sugar alcohols also impact the osmotic pressure in your colon, leading to more water staying/getting absorbed by your bowel movements, which then leads to its laxative effect?

I'm so happy to see Sam again here! Someone, please say hi to her from us, hardcore fans, I guess? ^^ Also, Andrew is a very decent host, I could stand to see more videos with him. (BTW, did Alex and George eat those bad gummy bears to be unavailable as hosts? ^^)

Super informative and interesting, thanks!

Around the time where mass market sugar free treats started happening, I was at a rest stop in New York, and they sold a sugar free brownie that was about 3x3x1 inches in size. It had so much sugar free (laxative) that I thought it must be a cruel joke.

This was fun! Makes me want to try some of the less known sweeteners...for fun? Love the colors for those gummy bears as well as how shiny they were.

Very well done video , thanks

I finally (at 63) weaned myself off of soda (with high-ferocious corn syrup), because it causes my muscles to tighten up and joint pain (probably inflammation). The first thing I tried had sucralose in it. I found it caused the same symptoms as high-ferocious corn syrup.

I'm interested to know how the brain would response to this artificial sweetness. does the body release Insulin? If so what happens to Insulin when no sugar is found?

I would love to see more Andrew content! I just subscribed, and I noticed him in a handful of videos, but I LOVE HIS DELIVERY HERE! I would absolutely love to see him alongside George and Alex host some videos!! (for any Futurama fans, I *did* get a bit of a Scruffy-the-Janitor vibe from him against our normal hosts and I 100% mean that as a compliment) CameraMan Andrew FTW!!!

Just wait until you hear about THC gummies. Locally a little girl took her dad’s to elementary school and passed them out to friends. Dad got in trouble.

For Stevia, Reb A is the way to go! Please make a video on allulose. Could be fun.

i hate artificial sweeteners, i'm super sensitive to them so they all give me the runs even if they technically aren't laxatives. just about every soda now has them, i can't drink fanta and sprite anymore, i wish they'd get a zero and normal version like cola.

This was a really interesting video; I actually had some artificial sweeteners sitting at home (left over from getting a bunch of coffee for an event I hosted the other day), so I played along! The ones I had were aspartame, saccharine, and sucralose: I thought the saccharine was the least offensive, followed closely by aspartame (they taste pretty similar to me). Immediate "Nope!" reaction from the sucralose though, really disliked it. I'd love to try the more unusual ones you picked up for this video. I guess peoples' different reactions to the different sweeteners is the reason why cafés stock several different types through, nobody can agree on which ones are decent and which are offensive! The real winner in terms of taste, of course, was the packet of raw sugar that also came with the coffee order. Way tastier than all of the artificial sweeteners. Not really a fair comparison though, and of course it also has way more calories!

You missed the fact that Aspartame is a methyl Ester also and metabolizes to produce a small amount of methanol that some people seem to still be sensitive to especially if they use large amounts of aspartame

I've been seeing the older videos of you guys' with 1-2 mil views and my god am I glad this channel went in this direction. Totally feels like all the classic PBS Digital Studios youtube shows (idea channel, eons, sound field). It's so very disappointing, though, that these get such fewer views than that quick 5 minute infographic listicle bullshit.

I use a mix of saccharin and cyclamate and it suits me fine.

I'll admit I have a bit of a sweet tooth, and enjoy candies, ice cream, and baked goods, but I'm also one of those people who likes to drink coffee with no cream or sugar. It took a while, but now I'm accustomed to the taste.

monk fruit / xilotol is the best 50/50 combo imo

Anyway you could do a video on Monk Fruit extract. It is a more natural sugar alternative.

I use Stevia as a non-sugar sweetener just for that reason - the others give me 'intestinal distress'

Sam! 💜

I remember this. A legend named peanutbitter on the website funnyjunk bought a 5 pound bag, ate them, documented his experience and posted it on youtube. The video is unlisted but I can find it easily. That dude was a legend

About ten years ago I got a pack of "sugar free"sweets at a supermarket and an hour or so later experenced the same effect,when I took a close look at the back of the pack I found it was sweetend with fructose witch is a sugar and should not be consumed in large quantities.

"...excessive dose of sucralose" Man's got bars!

This was very informative, I've switched from sugar to sucralose in hopes that it would help me consume less sugar. But sometimes I wonder whether it's the best choice

It only took me a couple of days to get to where Stevia had no weird aftertaste. And I'm super picky about the taste of "artificial" sweeteners.

I understand aspartame may give a laxative effect if you eat too much of it. I read that indication on a brand of sugar-free mints.

Velamints! I think it was the xylitol.

Harvey doesn't drink coffee.

But what about...a MIX? I can't be the only person that fills his self-serve soft drink with mostly diet then gives it a few blips of regular soda or w/e fruit juice is on tap.

Avoid the blue or pink stuff. Use the yellow sucralose that is safer.

all i remember was taking too many strepsils and ricola and then having the runs.

At least sugar doesn't have any aftertaste

reminds me i should get a bag of sugar alcohol that isn’t erythritol

This is hilarious considering I take fiber gummies which are a type of natural laxative lol

Aspartame may not be a laxative, but it is a diuretic.

2:23 did he say mommy?

Aspertame tastes bitter and awful to me.

This guy looks like William osman if he had a stable career

Just eat sugar, I've never tasted any good tasting sugar free variant of something that originally had sugar in it.

I did like the video....until i was told to "smash like and subscribe," then i promptly removed my like

8:42 Try to avoid using that guy's pronounciation videos. They're legitimately bad most of the time and you can see that with how many native speakers are in his comments correcting him lol