Project Summary
Ever wondered why you have cravings for sweet food, whereas your friend may have cravings for savory food more often? It could be due to differences in our genetic makeup and culture. It is in a human’s innate nature to enjoy sweet foods. In the modern world, when people do not face the risk of food crisis, individuals have started to show variations in their preferred sweetness levels in foods and beverages. Research have shown there is a group of consumers prefer much sweeter food, who were classified as High Sweet Likers (HSL), and a group of consumers prefer much lower sweet food, who were classified as Low Sweet Likers (LSL). This summer school project will explore whether there is a more effective way to classify Sweet Liking Status and how this taste phenotype impact on sweet perception for a range of different type of sugar (natural vs artificial sweetner).
Full Project Description
It is in a human’s innate nature to enjoy sweet foods. In the modern world, when people do not face the risk of food crisis, individuals have started to show variations in their preferred sweetness levels in foods and beverages. Individuals who have shown to prefer much sweeter solutions (24 to 36% sucrose solution) were classified as High Sweet Likers (HSL), whereas individual who prefer much lower sweet solutions were classified as Low Sweet Likers, which refers to Sweet Liking Status (SLS). When moving from testing sucrose solutions to actual beverage products, HSL demonstrated to have preference to a much higher sweetened products (e.g. chocolate biscuit and beverage), whereas LSL showed a strong dislike. Interestingly, how this taste phenotype links to sweet taste perception is currently not fully studied, and often conflicting findings were reported. This 9-week project will aim to run a pilot study to investigate different ways to classify participants’ SLS and explore whether there is a more rapid method that can be used for classification reliably. In addition, this project will also explore the relationship between SLS and sweet perception including both detection threshold and suprathreshold (intensity ratings) for a range of different sugars. To achieve the research objectives, N=20 healthy consumers will be recruited to participate this study and will be invited to attend three sensory sessions. Ethical approval from School of Biosciences ethics committee will be obtained before the project started. The first session include screening for Sweet Liking Status by measuring their hedonic response using the 5 sucrose solution method (3%, 6%, 12%, 24% and 36%). An additional three concentration method (3%, 12% and 36%) and one concentration (36%) method will be explored to see whether this could be a reliable rapid approach to screen SLS instead of the 5 solution method. During the second session, participants will be invited to evaluate their detection threshold of both sucrose and saccharin by using ASTM standard and staircase threshold method. During the third session, participants will be invited to train on the use of gLMS scale, which will be used to collect perceived intensity ratings. Once participants were fully trained on the scale, they will be asked to evaluate a range of sweet solutions including natural sugars (sucrose and glucose) and sweeteners (saccharin, aspartame, sucralose and stevia) at two different concentrations (High vs Low). Samples will be served in a randomised order and proper breaks and palate cleanser will be given to participants. In terms of data analysis, Cluster analysis will be used for SLS classification by using the 5 solution methods. Pearson correlation test and Chi-square will be used to understand whether the 1 and 3 solution methods would be a good alternative method. ANOVAs will be applied to understand the impact of SLS on detection threshold and suprathreshold.