Why Does Starch Taste Sweeter When Chewed?

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Chewing starchy foods like soda crackers or non-salty chips leads to a sweeter taste due to the action of the enzyme amylase in saliva. Amylase breaks down starch into maltose, a sugar, which is why the longer the food is held in the mouth, the sweeter it becomes. Starch is a polysaccharide made up of glucose monomers, and the enzymatic process converts these into simpler sugars. Foods high in starch, such as bread or potatoes, can enhance this sweetness effect. This phenomenon illustrates the role of saliva in digestion and taste perception.
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can anyone help me understand what happens when a plain soda cracker or a non salty chip is chewed - and after a while before its swollowed. It will slowly taste sweeter. How deos enzyme action cause this effect?
 
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Your saliva contains an enzyme for breaking down starches. What is a starch? And what monomers would it break down into?
 
As far as I can tell that is the work of the enzyme amylase in your mouth breaking down starch and converting it into maltose. Maltose is a sugar, and so if you keep the starch in your mouth long enough for amylase to do its work, eventually enough of the starch will be converted into sugar that you will be able to taste the newly formed maltose. (You can do the same thing with anything that contains starch, it seems easier to do the experiment with things that contain a lot of starch into it to begin with like bread or potatoes...never tried it with potato chips before ^^).
 

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