sweetness

This note is part of my Zettelkasten.

Sweetness measures how sweet an ingredient tastes.

POD

sweetness is measured relative to table sugar
the simple variant is a single relative number called POD for potere dolcificante
analogous to PAC for freezing point depression
used in ice cream making
https://www.iceicedaddy.com/en/pod.php
https://icecreamcalc.com/2023/08/22/how-is-pac-and-pod-calculated/
an ingredient with a POD of X means:
- 1000 g solution of which 100 g is the ingredient (a 10% solution)
- is as sweet as 1000 g solution of which X g is sucrose
→ sucrose has a POD of 100, a higher POD is sweeter
easier: POD is the sweetness of an ingredient as percentage of sucrose
we can also calculate POD for mixes instead of single ingredients to measure its total sweetness

in reality sweetness is more complicated than that
it’s not linear, depending on the concentration of the solution the relative amounts of different sugars required to reach an equal sweetness change
even then, it’s not an exact science
always somewhat subjective, sweetness can’t be calculated from the structure of the molucule or something like that
it’s measured through studies where actual people have to compare the sweetness of different solutions
similar to color perception in that regard
see also: book Lebensmittelchemie
so the single POD number is more of a rough estimate

values found in the web often differ
some can be found here: https://icecreamcalc.com/2020/07/24/freezing-point-depression/
Dextrose: seen 70 in multiple places
values for glucose syrups vary wildly