Challenges in Taste Chemistry and Biology

Challenges in Taste Chemistry and Biology discusses food taste from the biochemical as well as the chemical point of view. This book is divided into four sections. The first section contains an overview chapter that reviews taste transduction and perception. Four chapters that discuss the biochemistry of bitter, sweet, and pungent tastes follow the overview chapter. The second section begins with a chapter describing a new technique called taste dilution analysis, which uses the human tongue as a sensitive biosensor for tastants. This method was applied successfully to identify intense bitter taste and cooling compounds from Maillard reaction products. Structure-activity relationship and stability of newly discovered cyclic alpha-enamines cooling compounds are also discussed. The third section emphasizes peptides as taste-active compounds. The synthesis and activity of the most interesting glycoconjugates of glutamate as umami taste compounds are described. The last section discusses the factors such as viscosity on flavor perception.