June 6, 2025 – It's time to add the word "neotame" to your ingredient label watch list, especially if you vape.
It's a relatively new artificial sweetener found in every disposable e-cigarette that researchers tested – and the ultra-sweet substance is increasingly being used in food and drink.
You probably have heard of aspartame. But neotame is its lesser-known sibling, with just one molecular difference.
It showed up in laboratory tests of 11 top disposable e-cigarette brands when researchers from Duke and Yale Universities were trying to figure out what makes the vapes, like Elf and Geek Bars, so, so sweet. Neotame is between 7,000 and 13,000 times sweeter than table sugar and up to 65 times sweeter than aspartame.
