Not sweet at all(water)

Very sweetsweetreference

None Low Medium High

Not bitter at all(water)

Very bitterBitter reference

0 2 6 9

Sweetness

Bitterness

0 1 6 10.5

None Low Medium High

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sensory profiling:

Fig. 1. Sensory profiling of aqueous solutions (n=3).

Equi-tests:

Is stevia the optimal alternative sweetener to sugar?

AIM

To study interaction effects on perceived bitterness and sweetness between Rebau-dioside A (RebA) and three different bitter tasting com-pounds (caffeine, goitrin and theobromine) naturally pre-sent in food and compare the results to those of sucrose.

INTRODUCTION

A large body of evidence shows that a diet with a high content of simple sugars, such as sucrose, plays a critical role in the prevalence of many life style diseases. Artificial sweeteners have been used in the food industry as alterna-tives to simple sugars. RebA from the Latin American plant Stevia is a natural sweete-ner with a great potential. To make RebA a successful substitute to the artificial sweeteners, in-depth know-ledge about sensory charac-teristics and possible interac-tion effects with other food constituents is crucial. One im-portant feature of sugar is its ability to lower the bitterness in foods why it is essential to investigate how RebA affects the perceived bitter taste.

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

CONCLUSIONS

The effect of the sweete-ner RebA on perceived bit-terness and sweetness of aqueous solutions with caf-feine, gotrin or theobromine deviated noticably com-pared to similar solutions sweetened with sucrose. The results emphasize that replacement of sucrose with stevia should be per-formed with caution and that the suitability of stevia must be evaluated for each product individually. Know-ledge obtained in this study can be used in future food applications and during de-velopment of healthy inno-vative and tasty products.

Sidsel Jensen, Natasja Nielsen and Ulla KidmoseAarhus University, Science and Technology, Department of Food Science, Kirstinebjergvej 10, DK- 5792 Aarslev

Fig. 3. Results from the sensory profiling showing the average intensity of perceived bitterness and sweetness of aqueous solutions of four different levels (none, low, medium and high) of caf-feine , goitrin or theobromine sweetened with sucrose or stevia in four different levels (none: , low: , medium: and high: ). Orange lines ( ) notes the pre-sence of an interaction effect between the sweetener and the bitter tasting compound.

Sid

sel.J

ens

en@

ag

rsci

.dk

Tel:

+45

8715

829

2

RESULTS

x Perceived bitterness was reduced by increasing concentrations of RebA or sucrose. x Interaction effects were observed for perceived sweetness in aqueous solu-tions of caffeine sweetened with RebA and sucrose, re-spectively. x Interaction effects for per-ceived bitterness only exis-ted between sucrose and goitrin and sucrose and theobromine.

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Sucrose Stevia

Foto: Jens Madsen

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was a part of the project ’MAXVEG’. MaxVeg is financed by the Danish Strategic Re-search Council.

Fig. 2. Scale used for equi-test of bitterness and sweetness. Aqueous solution of caffe-ine [9.71 g•l-1] and sucrose [40.0 g•l-1] was used as reference samples and positioned at an intensity of 12 on a 15 cm unstructured line scale.

PosterSidselBrassilienAug12ny.indd 1 17-07-2012 11:17:13