Sweetness Lab

In this lab, we asked the question: How does the structure of a carbohydrate affect its taste (sweetness)? We found that monosaccharides and disaccharides tended to be on the sweeter side while the polysaccharides were pretty plain tasting. Monosaccharides were very sweet, disaccharides were medium-sweet, and the polysaccharides were tasteless. The average degree of sweetness among the monosaccharides was about 123. For the disaccharides, it was 45, and for the polysaccharides, it was 0. This data supported my claim because I predicted that fructose (a monosaccharide) would be very sweet. Indeed. it was the very sweetest.

Carbohydrate structure and the amount of rings could affect how they are used by organisms. A more simple carbohydrate would be broken down very quickly, but have a smaller energy release while a more complex carbohydrate might take longer to be broken down, but have quite a bit of energy released.

The testers didn't give each sample the same rating. Of course, this makes sense because different people haven't different senses of taste. For example, Marie rated many of the sugars with a higher degree of sweetness than I did. This is most likely because I have a dull sense of taste, since a I eat a lot of spicy stuff. Marie, on the other hand, doesn't eat spicy foods.

Taste buds cause humans to taste sweetness as well as other flavors. However, the amount of taste buds varies from person to person. The more taste buds a person has, the more sensitive their sense of taste is. In the example above, it would be logical to conclude that Marie has more taste buds than me.