Optimizing Sweet Taste in Foods summarizes key research on what determines consumer perceptions of sweet taste, the range of sweet-tasting compounds and the ways their use in foods can be optimized.

Optimizing Sweet Taste in Foods:

• details the factors involved in the perception of sweet taste
• offers strategies for measuring consumer perception of sweet taste
• examines the compounds currently used to achieve sweet taste in food
• analyzes the future trends in improving the taste of sweeteners, using natural sweeteners, and hydrocolloid-sweetener interactions in food products
• investigates the use of biotechnology to develop sweetness potentiators and bitter blockers

Contents

PART 1 Factors Affecting Sweet Taste Perception

Stimulation of taste cells by sweet taste compounds

• Peripheral organization of taste
• The sweet taste receptor(s)
• Downstream signaling components
• Putative cellular mechanism(s) for the signal termination of sweet taste

Genetic differences in sweet taste perception

• PTC/PROP Tasting
• Sweetness: Relation to PROP, Fungiform Papillae Density, T2R38
• Relating Genetic Taste Markers with Dietary Sweet Behaviors
• Sweet Liking: Relation to PROP, Fungiform Papillae Density, T2R38
• Variation in Other Bitter Markers
• SAC Gene: Human homolog and hedonic response to sweeteners

Children’s liking of sweet tastes and its biological basis

• Ontogeny of sweet taste preferences: from fetal life to adolescence
• Role of experiential factors on sweet taste preferences
• Physiological properties of sweet tastes

Taste-odour interactions in sweet taste perception

• Overview of the literature
• Factors affecting taste-odour interactions
• Mechanisms of taste-odour interactions
• Implications for food product development

Taste-ingredient interactions modulating sweetness

• Interactions between sweeteners and bitter compounds
• Interactions between sweeteners and acids
• Interactions of sweet and salty compounds
• Interactions of sweet compounds with other sweet compounds

Measuring consumers’ perceptions of sweet taste

• Methods to determine consumer’s perception of sweet taste
• Overview of consumer’s perception of sweetness

Part 2: Types of Sweet Tasting Compounds

Sucrose

• Sugar manufacture
• Sugar products
• Properties of sugar
• Sugar functionality in food products

Polyols

• Types of polyols, chemical structures and their manufacture
• Physicochemical and functional properties
• Physiological properties
• Advantages and disadvantages of using polyols
• Applications
• Mixed sweetener potential of polyols
• Regulatory status

Low-calorie sweeteners

• Low-calorie sweeteners
• Health-related developments in low-calorie sweeteners
• Market-related developments in low-calorie sweeteners
• Implications for food product design

Reduced-calorie sweeteners and caloric alternatives

• Reduced-calorie sweeteners
• Alternative caloric sweeteners
• Established caloric alternatives

Part 3: Improving Sweet Tasting Compounds and Optimizing Their Use in Foods

Analysing and predicting properties of sweet-tasting compounds

• QSAR models
• Pharmacophore models
• Receptor models

Discovering new natural sweeteners

• Commercially used natural sweeteners
• Approaches to natural sweetener discovery
• Improvement of sweet taste

Molecular design and the development of new sweeteners

• The historical development of sweetness consumption
• Commercial alternative sweetener discoveries
• Molecular design – novel approaches novel chances
• Screening and visualising new sweeteners candidates
• Molecular design in commercial sweetener development
• From discovery to commercial products

Developing new sweeteners from natural compounds

• Importance of developing new sweeteners from natural compounds
• Methods of designing new sweeteners from natural compounds
• Synthesising new sweeteners from natural compounds

Improving the taste of sweeteners

• Blending sweeteners to provide synergy
• Blending sweeteners to improve taste profile
• Blending sweeteners to improve temporal profile
• Using additives to improve taste quality of sweeteners

Analysing and predicting synergy in sweetener blends

• Sweet taste measurements
• Response of a mixture vs responses to its components: the perceptive models
• Response of a mixture vs
• concentrations of its components: the ? (Gamma) family models
• Other interaction models

Bulk sweet tasting compounds in food product development

• Characteristics of bulk sweeteners
• Sensory properties
• Physical functionalities
• Bulk sweeteners

Hydrocolloid-sweetener interactions in food products

• Hydrocolloid-sweetener interactions
• Mechanisms of hydrocolloid-sweetener interactions
• Implications for food product development

Future directions: using biotechnology to discover new sweeteners, bitter blockers and sweetness potentiators

• Understanding taste at the molecular level enables discovery of novel sweeteners
• The use of bitter blockers to improve sweet taste

Index

click here to see books • videos • cd-roms of related interest