Time to maximum sweetness intensity of binary and ternary blends of sweeteners Susan S. Schiffman a, * , Elizabeth A. Sattely-Miller a , Ihab E. Bishay b a Department of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, 54212 Woodhall Building, Box 3259 DUMC, Durham, NC 27710, United States b The NutraSweet Company, 200 World Trade Center, The Merchandise Mart, Suite 936, Chicago, IL 60654, United States Received 31 March 2005; received in revised form 21 April 2006; accepted 26 April 2006 Available online 11 May 2006 Abstract The purpose of the current study was to determine what effect, if any, the blending of sweeteners has on the time to maximum sweet- ness intensity of sweeteners. In this study that is comprised of three separate experiments, trained panelists evaluated the time to max- imum sweetness intensity of sweeteners tested in both binary and ternary combinations. Sixteen sweeteners that varied widely in chemical structure were evaluated. Sweetener blends containing the protein thaumatin had the latest time to maximum sweetness intensity. As a group, blends containing neohesperidin dihydrochalcone, alitame, stevioside, rebauadioside-A, or neotame had later times to maximum sweetness intensity than blends with sugars and sugar alcohols. Many sweetener blends exhibited times to maximum sweetness intensity that fell intermediate between the earliest and latest of its constituent self-mixtures. These data indicate that the time to maximum sweet- ness intensity of ‘‘late’’ sweeteners can be shortened by blending with earlier onset sweeteners. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Sweeteners; Temporal profile; Mixtures 1. Introduction The investigation into the temporal qualities of sweet- eners is of great importance to the food industry and is ongoing (Ayya & Lawless, 1992; Bonnans & Noble, 1993, 1995; DuBois, Crosby, & Stephenson, 1981; Lynch, Liu, Mela, & MacFie, 1993; Portmann & Kilcast, 1996; Prakash, Bishay, Desai, & Walters, 2001; Shamil, Birch, Jackson, & Meek, 1988; Temple, Laing, Hutchinson, & Jinks, 2002; Yoshida, 1986). It is well known that different types of sweeteners display varying times of onset, dura- tion, decay, and extinction (Schiffman & Gatlin, 1993). An example of this is a comparison between the carbohy- drate sweeteners, or sugars, and a number of the large protein sweeteners, such as thaumatin and monellin. The carbohydrate sugars have an early onset of maximum sweetness intensity and a short extinction time (Schiffman & Gatlin, 1993). The protein sweeteners tend to have a significant delay in the time to maximum sweetness inten- sity and take much longer to extinguish (Kinghorn & Compadre, 1991, 2001; Naim et al., 2002; Schiffman & Gatlin, 1993). Even within a group of chemically related sweeteners, time to maximum sweetness intensity can vary. For example, the dipeptide sweetener neotame has been reported to have a longer time to maximum sweetness intensity than the related dipeptide aspartame (Prakash et al., 2001). One potential method for altering sweet tem- poral qualities is to blend two or more sweeteners together thereby creating a mixture with temporal properties that more closely resemble those of natural sugars such as sucrose and fructose. Blending of sweeteners has been shown to have a variety of advantages including significant improvements in overall 0950-3293/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2006.04.007 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 919 660 5657; fax: +919 684 8449. E-mail address: sss@duke.edu (S.S. Schiffman). www.elsevier.com/locate/foodqual Food Quality and Preference 18 (2007) 405–415