New sweeteners

Abstract

The removal of cyclamate by the Food and Drug Administration in 1969 resulted in additional research efforts to develop new synthetic sweeteners. However, due to the limits of knowledge in the area of taste mechanism and taste‐structure relationships, the major efforts have centered around the study of accidentally discovered sweet substances. The search for naturally occurring materials has led to the isolation of several interesting sweet proteins and renewed interest in other products such as stevioside and phyllodulcin. Tremendous progress has been made in dipeptide sweeteners since the original discovery of aspartame in the middle Sixties. Much of this work has greatly expanded the understanding of taste‐structure relationships. A third group of seemingly unrelated sweet substances can be constructed from a variety of alkoxyaromatic structures, including the dihydrochalcones, phyllodulcin, the nitroanilines, and others. A consideration of the structural relationship between these substances might lead to new, improved sweeteners. The recent emergence of a variety of heterocyclic and related sweeteners such as the oxathiazinone dioxides continues to increase the number of potential candidates. Although the progress is encouraging, much greater research effort should be applied to the basic study of taste mechanism, which, together with studies of taste‐structure relationships, should greatly aid the discovery of new and improved sweeteners.