Sweetness Lab

Today in Anatomy/Physiology class we did a sweetness lab; we tasted different sugars to rate their sweetness on a scale from 0-200. The sugars we tasted were sucrose (disaccharide), glucose (monosaccharide), fructose (monosaccharide), galactose (monosaccharide), maltose (disaccharide), lactose (disaccharide), starch (polysaccharide), and cellulose (polysaccharide). Typically, the sugars that were monosaccharides were sweeter than sugars with multiple rings. This is true in real life as well; candy, containing monosaccharides, is sweeter than lettuce, containing polysaccharides.

How do we taste sweetness?

Taste buds on our tongue, which are made of nerves, send signals to our brain. This helps us differentiate between sweet, salty, or bitter foods.
Every person has a different reaction to what they taste, because everyone's tongue is different. For example, people who have more sensitive tongues are called "super tasters", while a person with few taste-sensitive structures on their tongue are called "non-tasters".





Sources:
http://www.livescience.com/17190-supertaster-nontaster-tongue-evolution.html
http://www.livescience.com/32408-what-makes-food-taste-sweet.html