Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, College Park, MD, USA.
Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Chem Senses. 2018 Aug 24;43(7):481-488. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjy032.
Taste and flavor (retronasal olfaction) interact in the brain. The rules of that interaction are not well understood. This study uses 2 taste modifiers that alter sweet to examine the effects on flavors. Subjects used the Global Sensory Intensity Scale to assess the aroma, sweetness, sourness, and flavor of 10 foods. As previous work had shown, miracle fruit added sweetness to acids, which secondarily reduced sourness (mixture suppression) and Gymnema sylvestre reduced sweetness in sweet foods as well as the sweetness induced by miracle fruit. In this study, multiple regression showed that both sweet and sour contribute to flavor. Gymnema sylvestre reduced the perceived sweet of predominantly sweet foods (chocolate and maple syrup) as expected; reducing the sweet, reduced the flavor. The effects of miracle fruit were complicated by its dual action: intensification of sweet and reduction of sour. Predominantly sour foods (vinegar, lemon, mustard, pickle) were sweetened by miracle fruit but any flavor enhancement associated with the added sweet appears to have been countered by the flavor reduction associated with reduced sourness. Moderately sour foods that are also sweet (tomatoes, strawberries) were sweetened by miracle fruit and thus flavor was enhanced; flavor loss through sour reduction was apparently not sufficient to counter the flavor enhancement due to increased sweet so the net result was that tomato and strawberry flavors were enhanced. The flavors of control foods (not predominantly sweet or sour [sausage, peanuts]) showed only small changes.
味觉和风味（反味觉嗅觉）在大脑中相互作用。这种相互作用的规则还没有被很好地理解。本研究使用了两种改变甜味的味觉修饰剂来研究它们对风味的影响。受试者使用全球感官强度量表评估了 10 种食物的香气、甜味、酸味和风味。正如之前的工作所示，神秘果增加了酸的甜度，这会间接降低酸味（混合抑制），而匙羹藤不仅降低了甜味食物的甜度，也降低了神秘果引起的甜度。在这项研究中，多元回归表明，甜味和酸味都对风味有贡献。匙羹藤降低了人们对主要是甜味食物（巧克力和枫糖浆）的甜味感知，这是预期的结果；甜味的降低，也降低了风味。神秘果的效果很复杂，因为它有双重作用：增强甜味和降低酸味。主要是酸味的食物（醋、柠檬、芥末、泡菜）被神秘果变甜了，但由于酸味降低而产生的任何风味增强似乎都被与降低酸味相关的风味减弱所抵消。味道既甜又酸的中等酸味食物（西红柿、草莓）被神秘果变甜了，因此风味得到了增强；酸味降低导致的风味损失显然不足以抵消由于增加甜味而产生的风味增强，因此西红柿和草莓的风味得到了增强。控制食物（不是主要是甜味或酸味的食物[香肠、花生]）的风味只发生了微小的变化。
