Sweetness Lab

          The question of this lab was: How does the structure of a carbohydrate affect its taste (sweetness)?  Monosaccharides were sweeter than the disaccharides and the polysaccharides having three different tests. The first test was fructose I rated this a 100 on a scale of 0-100. Fructose is white and has a granular texture, it melts rather than dissolves in your mouth quite fast. The second monosaccharide that was tested was glucose. Now glucose was not as sweet as fructose but still rated a staggering 90 on the scale of 100. Now glucose was had the same texture (granular) and color (white). I noticed that glucose tasted like an artificial sweetener, kind of like splenda. The third and final monosaccharide was galactose, I rated this a 60 out of 100 which was a lot less sweeter than the other monosaccharides, but it was still one of the higher sugars. I observed the texture of the of this sugar and it felt like powder. Sugared powder. The sugar was also white. The disaccharides were a little different. Most of them were not as sweet as the monosacharides. Sucrose was the only one to rate 100 out of 100 and that had a white granular texture. This dissolved in my mouth really fast. The next disaccharide was Maltose. Maltose did not taste like most sugars and had a powdery texture. I rated it a 40. It did not taste like most sugars, it was more like a maple syrup. The final disaccharide was lactose. Lactose is the sugar in milk and what makes the milk a little sweet, so I was it expecting it to be sweet, but I ended up rating it a 10 on the scale. It had a powdery texture and was white. The lactose also did not melt nicely it just stayed in my mouth and eventually started tasting like paper. Finally, the polysaccharides. To me these did not taste like sugars. There were two and I rated both a 0. Starch and cellulose were both white, both powdery, and neither of them tasted like anything, not even paper.

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          My data states that monosacchrides were the sweetest kind of carbohydrates. This may be because monosacchrides are the smallest kind of structure, and the taste cells on our tongue may prefer single cell structures (monosacchrides) versus multiple cell structures (polysacchrides). The way we measured the sweetness lab had possible error. Everyone has a different conception of what not-very-sweet mean and what very-sweet means. The second error happened because each testers taste cells are different and respond differently to different levels of sweetness. The third and final error would be that maybe not all of the tester could have drank water between tests to clean their palate.

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          Not all tester gave the same rating for all the sugars, especially lactose. Lactose is the sugar in milk, and I rated lactose pretty low. A 10 out of 100. I spoke to some people that rated this 40-60. These people drink a lot of milk and enjoy the sweet taste. Now me personally do not drink mil that has lactose  in it (my mother is lactose free and we just drink her milk). When I was younger I had a problem with dairy products and so from a young age never really enjoyed regular milk. So I think a difference here could be people who like milk and people who do not. I think another difference could simply be that people just had a different thought of what sweetness level 40-60 should be. My 10 could have been another person 40. Lastly, there was a common difference between the sweetness level between sucrose and fructose. For me personally both sucrose and fructose were the same level of sweetness. Only difference was that sucrose melted in your mouth faster than fructose. For other people there could be the problem of have a different definition of sweetness that me on the scale of 0-100.

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          Humans can taste sweetness because of our taste buds. We can taste anything because of our taste buds. Taste buds are sensory organ found on one's tongue. If you were to look at your tongue in the mirror right now you would be able to spot dots/small lumps. Those are called papilla and most of them contain your taste buds. In one's tongue we average to have about 10,000 taste buds that get replaced every 2 weeks. According to KidsHealth while you are chewing the food releases chemicals that travel up your nose.  The chemicals trigger of the olfactory receptors inside your nose. They work together with your taste buds to create the flavor of what your eating. Everyone tastes differently because they have different tastes. This may because some testers have more cells and then they may experience more flavor.

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