Taste more dessert with less

Hello!

My brilliant and science-savvy friends at Caltech taught me something interesting and useful: The temperature of your sweet food affects the strength of the taste. Get this:

Sweet flavors taste sweeter when eaten hot, and taste less sweet when cold.

A classic example is that when people make homemade jelly, the warm cooked fruit needs to taste super overly-sweet, so that when it cools off it will taste just right. The sugar content is the same; it just tastes much sweeter when warm.

How can you use this to eat healthier? You probably already guessed it: Choose warmer sweets. Ice cream needs extra sugar to taste as sweet as hot cocoa. An iced tea needs more sugar to taste as sweet as a hot tea. Cold pie tastes less sweet than warm pie. And this is one more reason to swear off Frappucinos.

Use this to cut your sugar consumption this holiday season…without even sacrificing any flavor!

Have a good week!

Jill

P.s. Interestingly, bitter flavor is the opposite. It’s stronger when cold. I’m still working on figuring out why. If you know, please share!