ABSTRACT
Luis Fermı´n Capita´n Vallvey University of Granada, Granada, Spain
I. INTRODUCTION
Sweetness of taste plays a preponderant role in food
preference. Several food ingredients stimulate the
sensation of sweetness by interacting with taste recep-
tor cells in the mouth. The sweetening power of these
ingredients varies: (a) with the properties of the food
system, temperature, physical state, and the presence
of other flavors, and (b) with characteristics of the
person, such as genetics, health status, and age. There are many different sweeteners which can be
grouped into three main types: (a) sugars (refined
sugars, sucrose, fructose, glucose, dextrose, maltose,
etc.), (b) sugar replacements, polyols, or sugar
alcohols (sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, isomalt, etc.),
and (c) intense sweeteners (saccharin, aspartame,
acesulfame-K, sucralose, etc.). The two first groups
are nutritive sweeteners, include sweeteners with
sweetening power near or inferior to sucrose, and
add functional properties to foods through their
effects on sensory, physical, microbiological, and
chemical characteristics. The relationship between sweetness response and
concentration is different for each group. In general,
polyols fit a linear model with a slope lower than 1 (the
slope of sucrose); that is, they achieve the same
maximal intensity as sucrose but have a lower sweet-
ness potency (1). On the other hand, intense sweeteners
approach the maximal sweetness response asymptoti-
cally; thus, their potency is highly concentration
dependent (2).