Sweetness Lab

C.E.R

In this lab, we asked the question: “How does the structure of a carbohydrate affect its taste(sweetness)?” Our claim was: “If lactose is a disaccharide made of glucose and galactose, then it will taste sweet.” We assumed that lactose, being made up of glucose and galactose, was going to be the sweetest. On a scale of 0-200, Sucrose was an independent variable at 100. This set the example for everything else, and when we tested the Lactose we decided that Lactose had no taste, as if it never entered your mouth. Since lactose was tasteless, after we conducted our experiment we ended up being wrong.

1. Monosaccharides and disaccharides were the sweetest while the polysaccharides had nearly no taste.
2. The structure can change the way that organisms can connect with the carbohydrate, and can affect the overall usage of the carbohydrate by the organism.
3. No, each tester did not give the same rating for each sample.

1) Each tester has different taste buds, and therefore has a different rating for each carbohydrate.

2) Each tester has a different scale on which they rate the taste of a carbohydrate, so even if one tester feels the same taste as the other tester they may still rate it differently.

3) The amount of carbohydrate that each tester consumed was different as well, so that can affect the taste that each one experienced.

 4. The emotions that are associated with the food we consume, and the texture, feel, and softness of the food we consume cause humans to taste “sweetness”.

Carbohydrate	Type of Carbohydrate	Degree of Sweetness	Color	Texture	Other Observations/Connections to Food
Sucrose	Disaccharide	100	white	granular	fruits
Glucose	monosaccharide	25	white	soft, almost no texture	fruits/ sugars
Fructose	monosaccharide	150	translucent white	grainy	bread, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup
Galactose	monosaccharide	25	pearl white	powdery	dairy products
Maltose	disaccharide	10	yellow(sandy)	clumped up/soft	Grain for Beer
Lactose	disaccharide	0	white	soft, weightless	milk
Starch	polysaccharide	0	white	soft/weightless	bread
Cellulose	polysaccharide	0	white	soft/ weightless	celery

Question 4 link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0072592/