Sweetness Lab

Sweetness Lab Conclusion

          In this lab, we asked the question, how does the structure of a carbohydrate affect its sweetness? We found out that the monosaccharides are the sweetest, the disaccharides are sweet and  the polysaccharides are the blandest. The monosaccharides, Glucose, Fructose, and Galactose were very sweet as we gave them a degree of sweetness of 90 for the Glucose, 115 for the Fructose, and 50 for the Galactose. The disaccharides, Sucrose, Maltose, Lactose were sweet as we gave Sucrose a degree of sweetness of 100, 80 for Maltose, and 20 for Lactose. The polysaccharides, Starch and Cellulose were plain as we gave Starch and Cellulose a degree of sweetness of 0. Monosaccharides have one ring, disaccharides have 2, and polysaccharides have many rings. So this shows that the less rings a carbohydrate has, the sweeter each carbohydrate will be.

Carbohydrate structure affects how they are used in cells and organisms in many ways. They have rings of carbohydrates and stores energy for us to do work. The three types of  carbohydrates, Monosaccharides, Disaccharides, Polysaccharides. Monosaccharides have one ring, disaccharides have two rings, and polysaccharides have many. They are digestible and indigestible. Some sugar are bad like Fructose. It’s is contained in fruits, soft drinks, and bread. It needs lots of cellulose to process it. Also, bad sugars like this can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, higher calorie consumption, and increased fat. The ratings we gave may not be accurate as others. This happens because of the different serving amounts people used in the experiment to try each one of the carbohydrates, people may have different taste buds, and the amount of time that the Carbohydrates have been left out for. Tasters can rank these carbohydrates differently by doing exact measurements for each carbohydrate by using a measuring cup and adding the same amount for each Carbohydrate.

Carbohydrate	Type of Carbohydrate	Degree of Sweetness	Color	Texture	Other Observation/ Connection to Food
Sucrose	Disaccharide	100	white	granular	sugar
Glucose	Monosaccharide	90	Transparent white	granular	granular sugar
Fructose	Monosaccharide	115	Transparent white	granular	granular sugar
Galactose	Monosaccharide	50	white	powder	powdered sugar
Maltose	Disaccharide	80	brownish white	granular	brown sugar
Lactose	Disaccharide	20	white	soft, powder	powdered milk
Starch	Polysaccharide	0	white	soft, powder	corn
Cellulose	Polysaccharide	0	white	soft, powder	celery

1. Monosaccharaides are the sweetest out of the other two, disaccharides and polysaccharides. From our observation, the average degree of sweetness for the Monosaccharaides is 85. The average degree of sweetness for the disaccharides is 66.6 and the average degree of sweetness for the polysaccharides is 0. Monosaccharaides are found in many foods that contain lots of sugar, disaccharides have food that contain sugar, but a little less than monosaccharaides. Polysaccharaides have foods that have little to no sugar.


2. The structure of carbohydrates differ by the amount of ring each type contains. Monosaccharaides contain one ring, disaccharides contain two, and polysaccharaides contain many.

3. No, the ratings were different. This can happen because of the different serving amounts each person used to try each carbohydrate, the amount of time each carbohydrate had been left out in each petri dish, and people may have different taste buds from others.

4. Humans can taste sweetness by their taste buds. Tasters can rank the sweetness of the same carbohydrate samples by smelling each carbohydrate or keeping each carbohydrate on a certain part of the tongue for a long period of time.