Sweetness Lab

The purpose of this lab was to find how the structure of a carbohydrate affects its taste (sweetness). I believe that the Monosaccharide carbohydrates were the sweetest, the Disaccharide carbohydrates were the second sweetest, and the Polysaccharide carbohydrates were the least sweet. I believe that the Monosaccharide carbohydrates are the sweetest, when in comparison with all the other types of carbohydrates, because of the data I collected. In the eight carbohydrates, three were Monosaccharide: Glucose, Fructose, and Galactose. With a sweetness scale that ranges from 0-200, Glucose got a 140, Fructose got a 150 and Galactose got a 120. These were the three sweetest in the eight total carbohydrates. This data supports my claim because the ratings of Glucose, Fructose, and Galactose, all Monosaccharide, are all higher then the other carbohydrates. With the Disaccharides carbohydrates, they were definitely the second sweetest when compared with all the other types of carbohydrates. There were three Disaccharide carbohydrates: Sucrose, Maltose, and Lactose. Again, with a scale that ranges 0-200, Sucrose got a rating of 100, Maltose got a 15 and Lactose got a 55. This data supports my claim because the ratings of Sucrose, Maltose, and Lactose, all Disaccharides, were higher then the ratings of Polysaccharide carbohydrates but still lower then the ratings of Monosaccharide carbohydrates. The Polysaccharide carbohydrates were the least sweetest when compared with the Disaccharide and Monosaccharide carbohydrates. There were only two Polysaccharide carbohydrates: Starch and Cellulose. Again with the scale that ranges from 0 to 200, starch got a rating of 10 and cellulose got the rating of 0. This data supports my claim because the ratings of Starch and Cellulose, all Polysaccharides, are the lowest out of all the other carbohydrates.

Carbohydrate structure (shape) might affect how they are used by cells/organisms because depending on whether it's a monosaccharide, disaccharide or polysaccharide carbohydrate, each carbohydrate structure is different therefore each carbohydrate has a different degree of sweetness and is used for something else.

My group and I didn't have the exact same ratings for each sample. The rating of the same samples could be different for different tasters because each person has their own unique sense of taste, some testers might have a higher expectation for how sweet something should be (therefore lowering the degree of sweetness more than others), and some might have washed the taste out of their mouth before the sweetness could actually set in.

Our taste buds causes us to taste sweetness. According to liveScience, there is a chemical messenger in our taste buds called neuropeptide Y. This chemical messenger signals the brain when something sweet is being eaten. While cholecystokinin, another chemical messenger, signals the brain when something bitter is being eaten. With this information in mind, I believe that some tasters could rank the sweetness of the same samples differently because some peoples chemical messengers might be weaker then other, therefore not being able to signal the brain if something sweet or bitter is being eaten.