August 24, 2015

Sweetness Lab Response

    In this lab, we tasted different carbohydrates and ranked them in order of their "sweetness". Our goal was to determine how the carbohydrate's structure affected its sweetness. In the end, our group figured out that the monosaccharides and dissacharides were sweeter than the polysaccharides. We concluded that the longer the chain of monomers, the less sweet the sugar was.
    It is interesting how many ways these sugars appear in our everyday lives from food to our body processes (i.e. respiration). Foods such as milk, high fructose corn syrup, vegetables, fruits, and honey all include types of sugars like lactose in milk, fructose in corn syrup and honey, and even glucose and sucrose in fruits and vegetables.
    But then there is the question of how do we even taste sweetness? Can it even be quantified? Although we all taste sugar and sweetness differently, the way the tongue works helps explain how we taste sweetness. According to a informational video by the Smithsonian and an article from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, taste bud receptors do NOT single out individual tastes such as sour or salty, but rather they contain receivers for all 5 tastes. As humans, we tend to favor the salty, sweet, and umami (savory) foods instead of the bitter or sour ones. However, genetics play a factor as well as we each taste things differently than the person next to us, which, in the lab, explains the various numerical rankings that we gave.

The carbohydrates that we tasted. 

Photo by: Jennifer Poo