Mary Poppins happily sang – Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. But, today we appreciate that most children eat too much sugar and all kids love it – some far more than others. New research showed that some kids need more sugar to get the same sweet taste because the sensitivity to sweets varies widely in children aged 7 to 14.
For some kids just a trace of sugar could be detected in a glass of water. For others up to 3 teaspoons of sugar were needed before the children declared the drink sweet. As we reformulate foods to reduce sugar in kids’diets, for the less sugar-sensitive children they may not get a sweet signal from sugar-reduced foods which will factor into acceptance.
The researchers were also surprised to find out that sugar sensitivity was related to a variation in the bitter receptor gene. Children who were more sensitive to bitter tastes ate a higher percentage of their daily calories as sugar. They also learned that children with more body fat, those that were overweight, were very sweet sensitive. They needed very little sugar to perceive a sweet taste.
What does all this teach us? It is hard to cubbyhole tastes and reformulating foods for wide acceptance is not that easy.
