DailyDirt: Sweeteners By Any Another Other Names May Not Taste As Sweet...
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The sense of taste is surprisingly complex. It's related to the sense of smell, but various foods also have combinations of textures and consistencies that make taste tests an interesting (and difficult to fully understand) field of study. There are "perfect Pepsi's" -- not just a single "good" taste that everyone can agree upon. Here are just some other tidbits on tasting.- Japanese scientists have studied the properties of miraculin -- the glycoprotein from the West African plant Richardella dulcifica that makes sour things taste incredibly sweet (for up to an hour). It works best in an acidic environment to bind your taste receptors, and unfortunately, the FDA considers it a food additive and has not approved its use as an artificial sweetener. [url]
- Some folks are investigating "Pine mouth" syndrome -- the phenomenon where a metallic aftertaste lingers in your mouth for days after eating pine nuts. The effect was first documented in 2001, but more cases are being reported and various food agencies are trying to track down the cause. [url]
- There are over 600 flavor compounds that combine to create the taste of chocolate. However, humans can recognize the aroma of chocolate by only 25 of those volatile flavors. [url]
- To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]
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Filed Under: chocolate, flavors, miraculin, pine mouth, richardella dulcifica, sour, sweeteners, taste
Companies: fda, pepsi
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artificial sweetner=food additive?
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Re: artificial sweetner=food additive?
http://www.fda.gov/food/foodingredientspackaging/ucm094211.htm#foodadd
"In its broadest sense, a food additive is any substance added to food. Legally, the term refers to "any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result -- directly or indirectly -- in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food." This definition includes any substance used in the production, processing, treatment, packaging, transportation or storage of food. The purpose of the legal definition, however, is to impose a premarket approval requirement. Therefore, this definition excludes ingredients whose use is generally recognized as safe (where government approval is not needed), those ingredients approved for use by FDA or the U.S. Department of Agriculture prior to the food additives provisions of law, and color additives and pesticides where other legal premarket approval requirements apply."
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Artificial Salteners?
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Re: Re: artificial sweetner=food additive?
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Re: Artificial Salteners?
I think that's a question of how salt receptors work versus how sweet receptors work.
Sweet receptors seem to be triggered by molecules that contain structures that are similar to sugar -- so chemists (or nature) can design an array of similar molecules that can bind those sweet receptors better and produce a sweet taste that is really intense.
Salt receptors are triggered by metal ions -- which are just charged atoms, not molecules. So different alkali metal ions taste salty in slightly different ways -- which is why some "low sodium" foods contain potassium salts instead of sodium salts. You *could* try other metals, but other metals can have unwanted side effects -- lithium salts, for example, are also a medicine for depression, so you probably don't want to use lithium salts as a food additive (and I have no idea how salty it tastes, anyway). Potassium is an okay substitute for sodium, but it doesn't quite taste like sodium salt. But all these alkali metal salts generally aren't "hundreds of times" saltier due to the way they interact with ion receptors on your tongue -- there just isn't a way to make them bind that much better because these are just metal ions -- nature only has a certain number of metal ions that are edible and non-toxic.
I vaguely remember that some potato chip companies are working on ways to make sodium chloride more effective per weight -- but that generally involves changing the size and shape of the salt grains so that they dissolve faster on your tongue. Making salt particles different sizes/shapes doesn't really make the salt any "saltier" but it changes how effectively it is delivered, so that they can use less salt on chips but people still think it tastes as salty.
BTW, Lawrence... why not register as a Techdirt user? You seem to comment here often enough that I recognize your username.
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Re: Artificial Salteners?
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Re: Re: Artificial Salteners?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_substitute
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FDA redaction of its denial in 1974?
-C
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