This Is How "Sugarless" Sweeteners Trick Your Tongue

This Is How "Sugarless" Sweeteners Trick Your Tongue: "Take a sip of licorice tea and you’ll notice a strange lingering sweetness, as if someone secretly added sugar to your cup. This is due to glycyrrhizin, a sweetener which was used well before stevia entered the commercial market, but which works a similar way. People crave sweetness. Supposedly this is because we crave calories, but sweetness is an indication, not a guarantee. There are molecules that give us the sweetness of sugar, but without the calories. Lately, a lack of calories is considered more valuable than a surplus, and “sugarless” sweeteners have come on to the market. The most popular of them, stevia, come from the plant Stevia rebaudiana. It’s not, technically, sugarless. Stevia is a glycoside. A glycoside contains a sugar molecule, but it’s bound to another molecular structure, usually a hydroxy compound. Glycosides are often incredibly sweet when compared to plain old sucrose. A little glycoside goes a long way."

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