Saccharin sweetness

Trade names Saccharin Sweet n Low Indications Sugar substitute Category Sweetening agent Half-life N/A... 

Sweet-Chew 350. See Calcium saccharin Sweet elder. See Elder flowers Sweetened middle distillate Sweetened middle petroleum distillates. See Petroleum distillates, sweetened middle Sweet fennel. See Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) Sweet fennel extract. See Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) extract... 

Developers of artificial sweeteners must evaluate potendal products in terms of several factors—such as toxicity, stability, and cost—in addition to taste. Saccharin (Sweet N Low), the first synthetic sweetener, was discovered accidentally by Ira Remsen in 1879. One evening he noticed that the dinner rolls initially tasted sweet and then bitter. Because his wife did not notice that the rolls had an unusual taste, Remsen tasted his fingers and found they had the same odd taste. The next day he tasted the chemicals he had been working with the day before and found one that had an extremely sweet taste. (As strange as it may seem today, at one time it was common for chemists to taste compounds in order to characterize them.) He called this compound saccharin it was eventually found to be about 300 times sweeter than glucose. Notice that, in spite of its name, saccharin is not a saccharide. 

Table III. Responses of three familiar mammals to two synthetic tastants, sodium saccharin (sweet) and sucrose octaacetate (bitter) in two-bottle, solution vs. solvent choice tests.

Students arc strongly advised not to attempt identification of the soluble carbohydrates by taste—quite apart from the fact that other compounds (c.g., saccharin] also have a sweet taste, the tasting of an imperfectly identified organic compound u too dangerous an operation. 

Saccharin Itself is sparingly soluble in cold water, but the imino hydrogen is acidic and the compound forms a water-soluble sodium salt. The latter is about 600 times as sweet as cane sugar. 

Saccharin sucralose and aspartame illustrate the diversity of structural types that taste sweet and the vitality and continuing development of the in dustry of which they are a part ... 

A persistent idea is that there is a very small number of flavor quaUties or characteristics, called primaries, each detected by a different kind of receptor site in the sensory organ. It is thought that each of these primary sites can be excited independently but that some chemicals can react with more than one site producing the perception of several flavor quaUties simultaneously (12). Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami quaUties are generally accepted as five of the primaries for taste sucrose, hydrochloric acid, sodium chloride, quinine, and glutamate, respectively, are compounds that have these primary tastes. Sucrose is only sweet, quinine is only bitter, etc saccharin, however, is slightly bitter as well as sweet and its Stevens law exponent is 0.8, between that for purely sweet (1.5) and purely bitter (0.6) compounds (34). There is evidence that all compounds with the same primary taste characteristic have the same psychophysical exponent even though they may have different threshold values (24). The flavor of a complex food can be described as a combination of a smaller number of flavor primaries, each with an associated intensity. A flavor may be described as a vector in which the primaries make up the coordinates of the flavor space. 

Fig. 1. Sweet-tasting compounds of various chemical classes and their common (ah-b) unit, (a) P-D-fmctose (b) saccharin (c) chloroform (d) unsaturated...

Saccharin. Sacchatin [81-07-2] C H NO S, which is approximately 300 times as sweet as sucrose ia coaceatratioas up to the equivaleat of a 10% sucrose solutioa, has beea used commercially as a nonnutritive sweeteaer siace before 1900, predomiaanfly ia carboaated soft drioks, tabletop sweeteaers, and dietetic foods marketed primarily to diabetics. In 1977, the FDA proposed a ban on sacchatin because of its association with bladder cancer ia laboratory animals. At the time, it was the only commercially available nonnutritive sweetener, and pubflc outcry led to a delay of the ban, which was officially withdrawn ia 1991. Instead, the FDA required that warning labels be placed on all foods that contained the iagredient. Although sacchatin is heat stable, the pubflc debate over its safety, as well as the fact that approximately one-third of the population perceives it to have a bitter aftertaste, has limited its use. 

Acesulfame-K. Acesulfame-K [55589-62-3] (4), the potassium salt of acesulfame [33665-90-6] (6-methyl-l,2,3-oxathiaziQ-4(3ff)-one 2,2-dioxide), is a sweetener that resembles saccharin in stmcture and taste profile. 5,6-Dimethyl-l,2,3-oxathiazine-4(3ff)-one 2,2-dioxide, the first of many sweet compounds belonging to the dihydrooxathia2inone dioxide class, was discovered accidentally in 1967 (63). From these many sweet compounds, acesulfame was chosen for commercialisation. To improve water solubiUty, the potassium salt was made. Acesulfame-K (trade name Sunette) was approved for dry product use in the United States in 1988 and in Canada in October, 1994. Later, it was approved by the FDA for additional food categories such as yogurts, frosen and refrigerated desserts, and baked goods. 

Acesulfame-K is a white crystalline powder having a long (six years or more) shelf life. It readily dissolves in water (270 g/L at 20°C). Like saccharin, acesulfame-K is stable to heat over a wide range of pH. At higher concentrations, there is a detectable bitter and metallic off-taste similar to saccharin. Use of the sodium salt of feruHc acid [437-98-4] (FEMA no. 3812) to reduce the bitter aftertaste of acesulfame-K has been described (64). The sweetness potency of acesulfame-K (100 to 200x, depending on the matching sucrose concentration) (63) is considered to be about half that of saccharin, which is about the same as that of aspartame. 

Saccharin. Saccharin [81-07-2] 3-oxo-2,3-dihydro-l,2-ben2isothia2ole 1,1-dioxide (i9-sulfoben2imide or (9-ben2osulfimide), (5) was accidentally discovered to be a sweet compound in 1878. A pilot plant was set up in New York to manufacture saccharin, which was displayed in a London exposition in 1885 (70). Since that time, saccharin has been used in many parts of the world. 

Saccharin imparts a sweetness that is pleasant at the onset but is followed by a lingering, bitter aftertaste. Sensitivity to this bitterness varies from person to person. At high concentration, however, most people can detect the rather unpleasant aftertaste. Saccharin is synergistic with other sweeteners of different chemical classes. For example, saccharin—cyclamate, saccharin—aspartame, saccharin—sucralose, and saccharin—aUtame combinations all exert synergy to various degrees. The blends, as a rule, exhibit less aftertaste than each of the component sweeteners by themselves. 

Saccharin is the most economical sweetener available. It is 300 times (8% sucrose solution sweetness equivalence) more potent than sugar and its price in 1996 was about 6.05/kg, ca 0.02/(kg-sweet unit). Sugar, on the other hand, was ca 0.77/kg, which is 39 times more expensive than saccharin on equal sweetness basis. Consequentiy, the low cost and high stabiUty of saccharin render it the sweetener of choice for dentifrices (qv), other toiletry products, and pharmaceuticals (qv). 

Abbott Laboratories, which has conducted additional toxicity and carcinogenicity studies with cyclamate, a 10 1 mixture of cyclamate—saccharin, and cyclohexylamine, claimed to be unable to confirm the 1969 findings. Abbott then filed a food additive petition for cyclamate in 1973, which was denied by the FDA in 1980. In 1982, the Calorie Control Council and Abbott Laboratories filed a second food additive petition containing the results of additional safety studies (73). That petition was stiU pending as of 1996. Cyclamate is, however, allowed for use in any or all three categories, ie, food, beverage, and tabletop, in about 50 countries. Sweet n Low, known in the United States as a saccharin-based table-top sweetener, contains exclusively cyclamate in Canada. 

Cyclamate is about 30 times (8% sucrose solution sweetness equivalence) more potent than sugar. Its bitter aftertaste is minor compared to saccharin and acesulfame-K. The mixture of cyclamate and saccharin, especially in a 10 1 ratio, imparts both a more rounded taste and a 10—20% synergy. Cyclamate (6) is manufactured by sulfonation of cyclohexylamine (7). Many reagents can be used, including sulfamic acid, salts of sulfamic acid, and sulfur trioxide (74—77). 

The isothiazole ring does not occur in nature. By far the most important synthetic isothiazole derivative is saccharin. This was the first non-carbohydrate sweetening agent to be discovered, as long ago as 1879. It is about 300 times as sweet as sucrose, and is still used in many countries as a non-nutritive sweetener. After it was found that administration of massive doses to rats caused bladder cancer, its use was banned in the New World, but the controversy continues as to whether there is any danger when it is used in small quantity. Saccharin is also used as an additive in electroplating processes (73AHC(15)233). 

Siiss-stofF, m. sweet substance sweetening agent, dulcifier, specif, saccharin, -waren, f.pL confectionery, sweete. -wasser, n. fresh water, -wasserablagerung, /. fresh-water deposit, -wein, m. sweet wine. 

Sweet N Low. See saccharin syneresis, 102-103 synthetic wax. See sorbitan monostearate syrups, 115... 

The taste of various amino acids, sugars, and aliphatic nitro compounds was studied, and it was concluded that the distance over which this hydrogen atom migrates, to give a second tautomeric form, determines the sweetness. In the case of saccharin, the sweetness was explained as due to two tautomeric forms. 

The taste of saccharin was further studied, and it was found that (1) the alkaline-earth-metal salts are sweet, whereas the heavy-metal salts are astringent (2) the sweet taste is lost if the sulfimide ring is cleaved, or if... 

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