Sugar and spice: similarities and sensory attributes.

Spices were selected for study that were believed to exhibit properties related to the sweetness commonly found in foods and beverages. Seventy healthy, normal-weight adults first smelled and then tasted 10 spices. Subjects responded to two questionnaires, judging similarity of the spices and indicating the sensory attributes important in their decision making. Intensity of odor, compatibility with sweetness, and degree of bitter taste were three major attributes used to arrive at similarity judgments. Overall, vanilla was found to be most similar to sugar. When examined further for compatibility with sweetness, cinnamon, vanilla, spearmint, and anise were generally found to be more comparable to sugar than nutmeg, ginger, cloves, bay, and salt. Nonwhite subjects, as opposed to white subjects, attributed greater sweetness to nutmeg and less sweetness to anise. The data suggest that certain spices exhibit sweet properties and may provide a healthful strategy for reducing sugar intake.