Starchy enters race to be sixth taste
Lim
"We are taught that humans can taste only five taste categories " said Juyun  Lim    associate professor at Oregon State University's Department of Food Science and Technology and lead author of the study. "It seems  however  that we can taste other chemicals that comprise foods such as starch degradation products and fatty acids."
 Lim  added that some compounds  such as starch  are abundant in nature and that we use them as a source of energy.
"Understanding how we can detect and recognize our food sources is very important since it will directly impact our ingestive behavior and health "  she  said.
It was previously assumed that starch was tasteless  but the new findings suggest that starch is broken down into glucose oligomers by an enzyme in our saliva  called alpha-amylase  and these so-called glucose oligomers can be tasted   Lim  said.
"It has long been assumed that simple sugars are the only class of carbohydrates that humans can taste. Thus our findings are surprising "  Lim  said.
For instance  "as much as we know that glucose oligomer detection is not through the sweet taste receptor  we do not yet know the exact mechanism of how we detect them " Lim said.
"We are taught that humans can taste only five taste categories " said Juyun  Lim    associate professor at Oregon State University's Department of Food Science and Technology and lead author of the study. "It seems  however  that we can taste other chemicals that comprise foods such as starch degradation products and fatty acids."
 [TGT]added that some compounds  such as starch  are abundant in nature and that we use them as a source of energy.
"Understanding how we can detect and recognize our food sources is very important since it will directly impact our ingestive behavior and health "  she  said.
It was previously assumed that starch was tasteless  but the new findings suggest that starch is broken down into glucose oligomers by an enzyme in our saliva  called alpha-amylase  and these so-called glucose oligomers can be tasted   [TGT]said.
"It has long been assumed that simple sugars are the only class of carbohydrates that humans can taste. Thus our findings are surprising "  [TGT]said.
For instance  "as much as we know that glucose oligomer detection is not through the sweet taste receptor  we do not yet know the exact mechanism of how we detect them " [TGT] said.