All About Sweeteners
by D. Eric Walters, Ph.D.

Artice of the week:

Sweetener article of the week

How is Sweetness Measured?

     

The "Percent Sucrose Equivalent" scale
     Sweetness is commonly measured by comparison to reference solutions of sucrose. Sucrose is the standard to which all other sweeteners are compared. Humans can recognize sweetness in about 1 or 2% sucrose solution. Coffee is typically sweetened to about the level of 5% sucrose. Soft drinks are usually about as sweet as 10% sucrose.  15% sucrose is really sweet and starts to feel a little syrupy. Taste panelists usually are trained to quantitate sweetness on a 15 cm line scale, using 2-15% sucrose solutions as references.
Linescale used to quantitate sweetness
     Other sweeteners are then tasted at a series of dilutions to determine the concentration that is as sweet as a given percent sucrose reference.  For example,  if a 1% solution of sweetener X is as sweet as a 10% sucrose solution, then sweetener X is said to be 10 times as potent as sucrose.
     For a detailed discussion, see "A Systematic Study of Concentration-Response Relationships of Sweeteners," G.E. DuBois, D.E. Walters, S.S. Schiffman, Z.S. Warwick, B.J. Booth,
S.D. Pecore, K. Gibes, B.T. Carr, and L.M. Brands, in Sweeteners: Discovery, Molecular Design and Chemoreception, D.E. Walters, F.T. Orthoefer, and G.E. DuBois, Eds., American Chemical Society,
Washington, DC (1991), pp 261-276.


SweetenerBook.com

This site is changing daily!.  Most recently updated 13 May 2008.  All material is © copyrighted property of Walters Associates.  All rights reserved.

Do you have questions about sweeteners?
If there's something you would like to know about sweeteners, ask us!  

The Sweetener Book
Coming soon:  a consumer's guide to the ever-expanding world of sweeteners.  If you'd like to be on the mailing list and be notified when this book is available, contact us!  We do NOT sell or re-distribute your contact information.