Sweetness Lab

Three types of saccharides we used in this lab - Poly, Di, and Mono saccharides

In this lab we answered the question, "How does the structure of a carbohydrate affect its taste(sweetness)? After testing the sugars sucrose, glucose, fructose, galactose, maltose, lactose, starch and cellulose, we found that the monosaccharides (Glucose, Fructose, Galactose) were sweetest type of carbohydrate, while disaccharides came in second, and polysaccharides came in third and last place. This is supported by our observations as the average score for the monosaccharides on a scale of 0 to 200 was 155, while the average score for disaccharides was 70, and the average score for polysaccharides was 15. It is corroborated by our research, as the one molecule in monosaccharides make them sweeter than the 2 or more in poly and disaccharides. Monosaccharides are also used in sweet foods and drinks such as milk and sweet fruits.

Monosaccharides and Disaccharides are used mostly for immediate energy in cells and organisms due to their 1 or 2 molecule structure, while Polysaccharides are converted into energy for later use. The longer the carbohydrate is, the more energy it has. Plants use the ones with more energy for long term use, while they use the lesser energy carbohydrates for immediate energy.

No, all testers did not give each sample the same exact rating, for these three reasons.

1. Everybody has their own opinion about certain types of tastes. Some people are generous raters while others are very strict.
2. Everyone has different taste buds, and they taste things differently. Some have a preference for bitterness or sweetness which might cloud their rating judgment.
3. People might take in a bit more of a sample than others cause them to like it more or less. For example, if you taste a lot of something bitter and you don't like it, you will give it a worse rating than someone who tasted very little of it. And vice versa for sweet samples.

According to the National Library of Medicine, the tongue uses its taste buds to sense the foods, and transports the information directly to the brain, which tells us how the food tastes. Our sense of taste used to be a matter of survival, which could tell us if plants were poisonous or edible, but now it is just a matter of what our taste buds enjoy eating. Everybody has different taste buds which might cause them to think that a food is more salty and savory, that sweet and sour. This is another reason to explain why all of the tasters ranked each sample differently, though they all got similar results.

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