Researchers may have found a way for people to eat sweet food without adding sugar.
Linda Bartoshuk, the director of Human Research at UF’s Center for Smell and Taste, discovered the secret to sweetness is not sugar but volatiles. They are compounds of flavor that can be sniffed, like perfume.
“People love sugar,” Bartoshuk said. “My interest is in getting people to eat healthier diets. But it’s very hard to acquire a taste for vegetables.”
Bartoshuk worked with tomato expert Harry Klee and professors David Clark and Charles Sims.
Lately, tomato growers have not been emphasizing flavor, Sims said. Bartoshuk said tomatoes are composed of volatiles, sugars and acids. Tomatoes have about 60 different volatiles, and about six of them are significantly sweeter than the rest.
The researchers evaluated 79 types of tomatoes, using statistical analysis to compare the chemical makeup of the fruit against the sugar and volatile content. Tomatoes high in sugar were not necessarily tastier.
Essentially, the answer to making any tomato better was to make the good volatiles more intense and take the bad ones out.
The team is now testing its results of volatile-enhanced sweetness on strawberries.
Bartoshuk said these sweet volatiles can be added to other foods to make them taste sweet without adding sugar.
“As far as we can tell,” Bartoshuk said, “this is about as safe a way to add sweet as you could imagine.”
