Sweetness Lab

     Today, in my Anatomy and Physiology class, I got the chance to taste eight different kinds of sugar: sucrose, glucose, fructose, galactose, maltose, lactose, starch, and cellulose. We had to rate the different sugars on a scale of 0-200 with the sucrose being used as the control baseline for rating the sweetness. The sweetest carbohydrate was glucose. It had the least amount of rings, and it had a relative sweetness of 100. Because it had the smallest number or rings (it was a monosaccharide), it had a higher sweetness. I noticed that as the number of sugar rings increases, then the sweetness level will go down. They are inversely related.
     All of the people in my group gave mostly the same ratings, but there were a couple that we had disagreed on. For monosaccharides, it is easier to taste the sweetness from it because it is easier for the taste buds to recognize the sugar. The simpler the carbohydrate structure is, the easier it would be for cells and organisms to use it.
      I had thought that the sucrose, glucose, fructose, and maltose would be sweet, while the lactose, starch, cellulose, and galactose would not be sweet. After conducting the experiment, I found that the carbohydrates with the highest sweetness was sucrose, glucose, fructose, and maltose. My hypothesis was proved correct because these four carbohydrates were all monosaccharides, meaning it would be easier to taste the sweetness.