Posted by
timothy
on from the new-improved-just-like-the-last-one dept.
guttentag writes: "The FDA has approved a new sugar substitute from the people who brought you NutraSweet. It's 7,000 to 13,000 times sweeter than sugar and unlike NutraSweet (aspartame), Neotame apparently doesn't give rats cancer and is safe for people with phenylkeotonuria."
Re:13,000 times sweeter
by
sam_handelman
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
There are three ways.
1) You take two liters of water, and add fifty grams of sugar to one liter, and fifty grams of neotame to the other (actually, I think they'd start out with less than that, but bear with me) you give people glasses and ask them which is sweeter? Then, you "lower the dose" of neotame until it's a wash (half of your sample says the sugar water is sweeter, half says the neotame.)
2) You could directly measure the rate at which sweet-taste cells fire (signal the brain) when exposed to a given concentration of the stuff, compared with a set amount (1 Molar, say) of sugar. If 1/13,000 M of Neotame gives the same response as 1M sugar, it's 13,000 times sweeter than sugar. I don't know enough about this technically to know exactly what they'd do, but they'd probably remove the taste cells from the rat and measure the response directly/electrically.
3) You could purify the extracellular domain of the sugar receptors in your taste-bud cells. Then, you'd measure the binding affinity for the compound to the receptor. Assuming every binding event gives an equal amount of sweetness, if Neotame has 13,000 times the binding constant of Sugar, it is 13,000 times sweeter (you need 1/13,000 as much to get a given amount of sweetneses.)
Now, my big problem with nutrasweet is the god damned aftertaste, which is foul. If this replacement doesn't taste metallic (whatever you want to call it), I'll drink it by the gallon.
-- The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Re:The time felt right for a new sweetener.
by
g4dget
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Science aside, I'm still inclined to believe that big monied interests have a lot to do with the holdup.
If it only were a simple as corruption. Rather, it's the way things work around here: herbs don't make much money relative to patented chemicals. That means that people don't have much money for scientific trials involving herbs. Furthermore, it's the drug and chemical companies that (directly or indirectly) train applied chemists and biologists, and they ultimately set the standards; it's not that they want to be biased, it's just that they can't imagine any other way of doing business.
The solution? Increased government funding for drug and herbal research--we can't rely on the market to fix this. The profit motive in medicine doesn't coincide with good patient care: a patented maintenance drug for a common chronic illness is much more interesting financially than a non-patentable cure. The drug companies want the maintenance drug, the patients want the cure.
Re:lesson learned early in life
by
BillTheKatt
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Be sure to remember that when you pull on your polyester clothes, use your anti-asthma inhaler and are given an IV through a plastic tube.
I laugh about all the people complaining about "non-natural" stuff here. We live a heck of a lot longer than cavemen, despite the fact that they were 100% "natural". Nature does not equal perfection.
Slashdot Mirror
There are three ways.
1) You take two liters of water, and add fifty grams of sugar to one liter, and fifty grams of neotame to the other (actually, I think they'd start out with less than that, but bear with me) you give people glasses and ask them which is sweeter? Then, you "lower the dose" of neotame until it's a wash (half of your sample says the sugar water is sweeter, half says the neotame.)
2) You could directly measure the rate at which sweet-taste cells fire (signal the brain) when exposed to a given concentration of the stuff, compared with a set amount (1 Molar, say) of sugar. If 1/13,000 M of Neotame gives the same response as 1M sugar, it's 13,000 times sweeter than sugar. I don't know enough about this technically to know exactly what they'd do, but they'd probably remove the taste cells from the rat and measure the response directly/electrically.
3) You could purify the extracellular domain of the sugar receptors in your taste-bud cells. Then, you'd measure the binding affinity for the compound to the receptor. Assuming every binding event gives an equal amount of sweetness, if Neotame has 13,000 times the binding constant of Sugar, it is 13,000 times sweeter (you need 1/13,000 as much to get a given amount of sweetneses.)
Now, my big problem with nutrasweet is the god damned aftertaste, which is foul. If this replacement doesn't taste metallic (whatever you want to call it), I'll drink it by the gallon.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
If it only were a simple as corruption. Rather, it's the way things work around here: herbs don't make much money relative to patented chemicals. That means that people don't have much money for scientific trials involving herbs. Furthermore, it's the drug and chemical companies that (directly or indirectly) train applied chemists and biologists, and they ultimately set the standards; it's not that they want to be biased, it's just that they can't imagine any other way of doing business.
The solution? Increased government funding for drug and herbal research--we can't rely on the market to fix this. The profit motive in medicine doesn't coincide with good patient care: a patented maintenance drug for a common chronic illness is much more interesting financially than a non-patentable cure. The drug companies want the maintenance drug, the patients want the cure.
Be sure to remember that when you pull on your polyester clothes, use your anti-asthma inhaler and are given an IV through a plastic tube.
I laugh about all the people complaining about "non-natural" stuff here. We live a heck of a lot longer than cavemen, despite the fact that they were 100% "natural". Nature does not equal perfection.