Saccharin can be made in a variety of ways. Toluene is the baseline for Remsen & Fahlberg’s original route. Saccharin is a simple sugar. The main ingredient, benzoic sulfilimine, has no food energy, and it is much sweeter than sucrose, but it has a bitter or metallic aftertaste, especially in high amounts. It’s used to sweeten drinks, candies, sweets, drugs, and toothpaste, along with other things.
It’s 200 to 700 times sweeter than sucrose (table sugar), doesn’t increase blood sugar levels, and has no calories like all nonnutritive sweeteners.
However, especially at high concentrations, it has a bitter or metallic aftertaste. When heated, saccharin becomes unstable, but this does not react chemically with other food ingredients, making it ideal for long-term storage.
Saccharin-sweetened items can be helpful to diabetics because the drug passes through the digestive system without being digested. Even though saccharin has no nutritional value, its sweet taste can cause insulin release in humans.