Sweetness Lab

Since polysaccharide carbs are multi ringed they have little or no taste in comparison to mono or di- saccharide carbs which can vary from extreme sweetness to sour, ill tastes. The degree of sweetness for sucrose was provided as 100. Fructose a one ringed carb was ranked as 150 on degree of sweetness. However, Starch, a polysaccharide was ranked 0, for it had little taste at all. I believe that since it takes more time to break down polysaccharides, the flavor is not immediately released like a monosachharide is.

The more rings a carbohydrate has, the harder it is to break down and process, so carbs like starch and cellulose last longer and provide energy for a longer time. Sucrose is a one ringed  carbohydrate, and while it is necessary, it provide little energy in the long term and burns off quickly. Multi ringed carbs can be used for storing energy and for  fueling the body, while one ringed carbs can be used to simply provide energy for the time when it is digested or created.

Since I did not have enough time to share result with my whole group i had to base my results with my neighbor, Eman. While we had similar results they did vary, especially the ones that were harder to discern whether there was any flavor at all. The fact that she probably had more or less quantity of carbs, her tastes buds are more or less developed and that her palate was not properly cleansed are mine was not, all prove to be sufficient variables to explain why we may have gotten different results.

The tongue possesses taste buds which have tiny little taste cells on them. When the sweetness reacts with the taste cells, it sends a signal to the brain shouting HEY SUGAR! SWEET! Taste cells only live for about a week and they can become damaged, so that could have led to my group getting different results than mine. They could have also been introduced to different levels of sugar so that the amount that they processed made their brain note down a different degree of sweetness than mine.

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