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:

Stevia as a bitter masking agent

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 to compare the results to those of sucrose.

INTRODUCTION

A large body of evidence shows that a diet with a high content of simple su-gars, such as sucrose, plays a critical role in the preva-lence of many life style di-seases. Artificial sweeteners have been used in the food industry as alternatives to simple sugars. RebA from the Latin American plant Stevia is a natural sweete-ner with a great potential. To make RebA a success-ful substitute to the artificial sweeteners, in-depth know-ledge about sensory cha-racteristics and possible in-teraction effects with other food constituents is crucial. One important feature of su-gar is its ability to lower the bitterness in foods why it is essential to investigate how RebA affects the perceived bitter taste.

CONCLUSIONS

The effect of the sweete-ner RebA on perceived bitterness and sweetness of aqueous solutions with caffeine, gotrin or theobro-mine deviated noticably compared to similar soluti-ons sweetened with sucro-se. The results emphasizethat replacement of sucro-se with stevia should be performed with caution and that the suitability of stevia must be evaluated for each product individu-ally. Knowledge obtained in this study can be used in future food applications and during development of healthy innovative and tas-ty products.

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

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

Sid

sel.J

ens

en@

ag

rsci

.dk

Tel:

+45

87 1

5 82

92

RESULTS

xPerceived bitterness was reduced by increasing concentrations of both RebA and sucrose. x Interaction effects were observed for perceived sweetness in aqueous so-lutions of caffeine sweete-ned with RebA and sucro-se, respectively. x Interaction effects for per-ceived bitterness only exis-ted between sucrose and goitrin and sucrose and theobromine.

Perc

eiv

ed

bitt

ern

ess

Perc

eiv

ed

sw

ee

tne

ss

Sucrose Stevia

Foto: Jens Madsen

Sucr

ose

&th

eo

bro

min

e

Sucr

ose

&g

oitr

in

Sucr

ose

&ca

ffeine

Stev

ia &

caffe

ine

Stev

ia &

go

itrin

Stev

ia &

the

ob

rom

ine

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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

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

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

PosterSidselBernAug12.indd 1 04-09-2012 12:35:51