Category
Poster - Applied
Description
The CHEM 497 Special Topics in Chemistry: Kitchen Chemistry course was designed for students to learn, engage, reason with, and practice foundational scientific principles in a familiar setting – food in the kitchen. The process of cooking involves transforming the qualities of ingredients and how they combine to form new textures, flavors, and tastes. According to our survey, taste is the most important factor when determining how appealing a certain food product is. Thus, finding a compound to alter the taste and perception of food could prove very useful. The Miracle Fruit Berry (MFB) is not sweet in and of itself, but it contains miraculin, which is a glycoprotein that changes how our taste bud receptors perceive ordinarily sour (i.e., acidic, pH < 7) foods as sweet for up to 2 hours afterward, whereas the taste of salty, sweet, and bitter foods (pH ≥7) remains unchanged. The goal of this research was to have CHEM 497 and other students participate in ranking their taste-testing perceptions of various sour, salty, bitter, and sweet foods before and after exposing their tongues to the MFB. A drastic increase in the perception of sweetness in typically sour foods was reported, whereas little to no differences in bitter, sweet, or salty foods were reported. This supports our hypothesis that our taste perception of foods of low pH are more affected by miraculin than food items at higher pH. Additionally, the results of our research will be implemented into the course curriculum.
Time to Tickle the Taste Buds
Poster - Applied
The CHEM 497 Special Topics in Chemistry: Kitchen Chemistry course was designed for students to learn, engage, reason with, and practice foundational scientific principles in a familiar setting – food in the kitchen. The process of cooking involves transforming the qualities of ingredients and how they combine to form new textures, flavors, and tastes. According to our survey, taste is the most important factor when determining how appealing a certain food product is. Thus, finding a compound to alter the taste and perception of food could prove very useful. The Miracle Fruit Berry (MFB) is not sweet in and of itself, but it contains miraculin, which is a glycoprotein that changes how our taste bud receptors perceive ordinarily sour (i.e., acidic, pH < 7) foods as sweet for up to 2 hours afterward, whereas the taste of salty, sweet, and bitter foods (pH ≥7) remains unchanged. The goal of this research was to have CHEM 497 and other students participate in ranking their taste-testing perceptions of various sour, salty, bitter, and sweet foods before and after exposing their tongues to the MFB. A drastic increase in the perception of sweetness in typically sour foods was reported, whereas little to no differences in bitter, sweet, or salty foods were reported. This supports our hypothesis that our taste perception of foods of low pH are more affected by miraculin than food items at higher pH. Additionally, the results of our research will be implemented into the course curriculum.
Comments
Undergraduate