Lactose Free Milk

[Shayna]

To prevent further hijacking of Bricker’s Ummm…Breast Milk thread in MPSIMS, I thought I’d pose this question on this forum. Here is where we are in the discussion as of now…

Shayna posted:

I’ve never tasted breast milk myself, but based on what I’m reading here, I probably wouldn’t like it at all. I’ve switched to lactose free milk, and one time the store I went to didn’t have any so I bought some regular 2% stuff. I almost puked it up it was so sweet. And if breast milk is sweeter than that, I definitely will not be drinking any.

Zulu posted:

Shayna, you’ve found that lactose free milk isn’t as sweet as regular 2%? The stuff we can get here (called Lactaid, I belive) is a bit sweeter than 2%.

Boris B posted:

There are two kinds of lactose-free milk, the kind that doesn’t have any lactose in it, and the kind with lactase added. Why would you call it lactose-free if it has lactose in it? you ask. I don’t know. The point is, the enzyme allows us lactose-intolerant folk to digest and taste more of the sugar, so the stuff should be a little sweeter than normal.

The lactose-free lactose-free milk should be less sweet. Haven’t tried it though.

Shayna posted:

The answer to that question is that there is no lactose in milk once it’s treated with lactase. Here’s why…

Lactose is a disaccharide, meaning it’s made up of 2 sugar molecules (in this case, glucose and galactose). The reason that some people are intolerant to lactose is that their bodies lack the enzyme, lactase, that breaks down those disaccharides into the more easily digestible (smaller sugar molecule) monosaccharides. Milk manufacturers have found a way to add that missing enzyme right into the milk, breaking lactose up into the monosaccharides, glucose and galactose, before it even enters your system, thereby eliminating the need for your body to do it itself. Therefore there really is no longer any lactose in lactase treated milk.

However, this is now making me scratch my head in puzzlement over why I find Lactaid® to be considerably less sweet than regular 2% milk. I grew up on 2% milk, always hated 1% (thought it was like drinking white water), and never thought I’d be able to drink anything else. I was surprised when I first tried Lactaid® and liked it (believing at the time that it tasted just like the 2% milk I’d been drinking for 30-some years). Then when I went back to the 2% that one time, I expected that it would still taste the same to me, but it tasted like I was drinking syrup, that’s how sweet it seemed (and I’m drinking 2% Lactaid®). I just assumed, then, that lactose was a sweeter sugar than the other sugars combined. Is that so?

I wonder if disaccharides are sweeter because they’re larger molecules, and monosaccharides are less sweet because they’re smaller. Hmmmm. Perhaps this is a question better suited to GQ.

Boris B posted:

Well, thanks for clearing me up on the lactose-free milk stuff. Looks like I had it all wrong. Anyway, I’m wondering now why I think lactose-free is sweeter and you think it’s less sweet.

My theory is, that our tastes are just tastes. Like, my tongue is more sensitive to monosaccharides and yours is more sensitive to polysaccharides. Is that possible?

I always thought it was because I could not taste the lactose without the lactase, as well as not being able to digest it, but it sounds like that might not be the case…

So, do any of the Teeming Millions have the answer we’re seeking? Is lactose (the more complex sugar) sweeter, less sweet, or is it just a matter of perception, when compared to the simpler sugars?

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“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

[Akatsukami]

Basically, I think that “sweet” is a perception. We can, of course, examine saccharides to determine what chemical features stimulate the “sweet” taste buds, count the number of taste buds of various kinds that the average person possesses, etc,; indeed, this has all been done. In the end, though, it comes down to someone (or a group of someones) saying, “This does (not) taste sweet to me”.
So much being said, I believe that it is generally agreed that lactose is not a particularly sweet sugar. Some brewers use it to add body to their beers without strongly affecting the taste.
I think that there is a ranking of the sweetness of various compounds according to what weight will stimulate the taste buds of the average person. Taking glucose as one, fructose ranks, I think, about 1.3, aspartame (not a saccharide) at about 300, and lactose, IIRC, as 0.005.

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It is often said that “anything is possible”. In fact, very few things are possible, and most of them have already happened.