A&P Sweetness Lab

Today we tasted  and ranked eight different sugars for their sweetness. The sugars all looked the same except maltose, but they all had unique tastes. It turns out that the more rings that a sugar has, the less sweet it tastes. Starch and cellulose which both have several hundred rings tasted more bland and received 0/200 and 25/200 respectively. On the other hand fructose and glucose which were ranked the sweetest, had very few rings. Other sugars tasted like the foods that they were in, such as lactose and fructose. In my mouth, lactose tasted like dry milk, and fructose tasted as sweet as fruit. 

We can distinguish between different tastes, because of chemical reactions with the proteins and taste buds. The taste buds are then able to connect with the brain which connects what we are tasting.