Why does bread taste sweet after you've chewed on it for some time?

Question

I've always wondered why. Can anyone explain it to me?

Can someone give some informatic details? As in, What actually happens?

Answer 1

The flavor in the bread comes out once you start chewing!

Answer 2

if the bread is chewed for sometimes it tastes sweet because foods like bread and potatoes are foods that are mostly made of starch. Starch is a molecule that plants make in order to store sugar. It consists of long chains of glucose (some of them branch). In your saliva you have an enzyme called amylase, this will cut up the large starch molecules at random until you are left with sugars made of 1,2 or 3 glucose molecules long (glucose, maltose or dextrin). Starch doesn t taste sweet, but glucose and maltose do, so as you chew the bread it will slowly become slightly sickly sweet

Answer 3

Kyle and Barb already pretty much nailed it, I just wanted to add that there is also the salt factor. Most bread is made with 1%-3% salt, and as the bread mixes with saliva, the salt content equalizes with that in your mouth, and it simply seems sweeter.

But mostly, it is the enzymes breaking the complex carbs into simple carbs -- in simplest, if slightly misleading terms: flour breaks down into sugar, and the human tongue has a LOT of "sweet" sensitive taste buds.

Answer 4

I'm not a hundred percent sure but i think it's because the starch or carbs in the bread get broken down by your digestive enzymes into a form of sugar

Answer 5

the amylase in your saliva breaks down the complex starch that is the bread into simple sugars > thus why it begins to taste sweet! Hope i helped!

Answer 6

There are special enzymes in your saliva that break down the starch in the bread into glucose. Which is sugar.

Answer 7

There is usually sugar in the bread and when you chew it it is released and you taste it more. If you put something in your mouth and chew it up and swallow it as fast as you can you won't taste as much as if you would put it in your mouth and chew it for a while! Kind of like chocolate. It's more enjoyable to put a piece in your mouth and let it melt then to just chow it down! I have to admit, I chow down sometimes myself!

Answer 8

Enzymes in your saliva begin to break the complex carbs in the grain into simple carbs.

Answer 9

Your saliva contains amylase enzymes that break down starches into their component sugars.

Answer 10

the starce in the bread turns to sugar as you chew it