Sweeteners vs. sugar in the battle of the palate

Which do we prefer - the light or full-on version? Food scientists investigating sweeteners in soft drinks find the consumer palate might be perverse, preferring regular cola over its lighter sister, but non-plussed over orange drinks.

On the premise that sweetness quality must match the ideal quality of sucrose for full consumer acceptance, researchers from the department of Food Science & Technology at Reading University in the UK set out to improve the taste quality of sweetened foods and beverages.

The current intense sweeteners used in food and drinks are generally considered to possess slight off-tastes such as bitterness, chemical or metallic notes which can often leave a persistent after taste, claim the scientists. But in today's increasingly obese world, artificial sweeteners are a useful way to reduce energy intake from certain foods.

Under the EU-funded concerted action programme TOSTQ​, professor Gordon G. Birch and colleagues studied whether consumers would have different preferences towards regular and light soft drinks.

Four types of commercial soft drinks were evaluated: a regular and a light version of both an orange and a cola soft drink.

The scientists found that for orange soft drinks, regular was not significantly preferred over the light version in the tests. Regular cola soft drinks, on the contrary, were significantly preferred over their light equivalents. The awareness of the presence of a light soft drink did not influence the preferences in both cases, they report.

For soft drink manufacturers the results from this small study may throw up more questions than they answer. But they do indicate that research into consumer palate perceptions of soft drinks - and their lighter versions - might be better understood on a case by case basis, treating each drink independently, rather than on a blanket comparison across several varieties.