Bitterness of Lipids

Abstract

Abstract We have been able to demonstrate, that the hydrophobicity of the amino acid side chains is responsible for the bitterness of a peptide. Now we investigated lipids (and carbohydrates) in the following classes: Monoglycerides, diglycerides, phosphatides, lysophosphatides, monohydroxy fatty acids, dihydroxy fatty acids, trihydroxy fatty acids, monosaccharides, disaccharides. It was found that for lipids and carbohydrates the ratio from the number of the C‐atoms of a molecule to the number of the hydroxyl groups called the R‐values, gave a good indication as to whether the lipid or carbohydrate was sweet, bitter or non‐bitter. For sweet compounds we found R = 1.00 ‐ 1.99, for bitter compounds we found R =2.00 ‐ 6.99, and for non‐bitter compounds we found a value of R higher than 7.00. These results confirm our earlier assumption, that like in the case of peptides, the bitterness of lipids and carbohydrates is caused by a certain range of the hydrophobicity.