Sweetness Lab

In this lab, my teammates and I tasted the various types of carbohydrates: sucrose, glucose, fructose, galactose, maltose, lactose, starch, and cellulose. The relationship between taste and structure is that as the number of rings increases, the amount of sweetness in the carbohydrate decreases. I can relate some of these sugars to the foods I have eaten. For example, cellulose is in plants and we eat vegetables. It makes sense that cellulose is not sweet because vegetables, which contain cellulose, are not sweet. On the other hand, Fructose is very sweet. We can relate fructose to fruits because fruits contain fructose. Fruits are sweet and therefore, fructose is also sweet. Humans taste sweetness differently and therefore rank the various carbohydrates differently. Taste buds make up the papillae. According to Kids Health, "Taste buds are sensory organs that are found in your tongue and allow you to experience tastes that are sweet, salty, sour, and bitter." (Kids Health) People taste sweetness because when you chew food, chemicals are released that allow the taste buds to gain flavor and taste for the foods you eat. Different tasters rank the sweetness of the same samples differently because everyone has different tastes. According to ILoveBacteria, everyone has four taste buds which are sour, salty, bitter, and sweet. People who have more taste buds generally "are more sensitive to strong flavors" (ILB); they are called super tasters. In this lab, students ranked the different carbohydrates differently because of the degree of sweetness different people can taste and because everyone has different tastes.

This is a picture of the different carbohydrates we used during the lab. Each table group got one of each sugars and we were able to taste all of  them.