An artificial sweetener made from two amino acids (aspartic acid and phenylalanine) that is much sweeter than sugar but nearly calorie-free.
From 'aspartic acid' + 'phenylalanine' (two amino acids that make up the compound) + '-ame' (chemical suffix). It was discovered accidentally in 1965 by a chemist who noticed his fingertip tasted sweet.
Aspartame was discovered by accident when a chemist licked his finger to pick up a piece of paper and noticed it was sweet—that's NutraSweet, Diet Coke, and thousands of other products! It's roughly 200 times sweeter than sugar, which is why such tiny amounts flavor entire drinks.
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