What is the sweetest plant in the world?

Sweet plant

Compared with bitterness, sweetness is a taste that everyone loves. People say that after all the bitterness, sweetness comes. It is conceivable that people yearn for and yearn for sweetness. . We know that sugar is sweet. In addition, there are many fruits that also have sweetness, but generally they are not as sweet as sugar. For example, the sweetness of watermelon is about 4% of sugar, and the sweetness of pears is about 12% of sugar. Is there anything sweeter than sugar? Maybe people will answer without thinking: Yes, it is saccharin. Yes, saccharin is a substance made by chemical synthesis, and its sweetness is 300 to 500 times that of sugar. So is there anything sweeter than saccharin, or what is the sweetest plant in the world?

Our ancestors have long mastered the technology of refining sugar from sugar cane, first crudely making it into brown sugar, and later refining it into white sugar. Beet is a new source of sugar that people later discovered. German chemist Margraf was the first to propose white sugar from beets in 1747. However, the quality of early beet sugar was not high. After 1864, sugar-making technology gradually became more perfect.

The sugar we consume daily is basically extracted from sugar cane and beets, but the sweetness of stevia is actually more than 200 to 300 times higher than that of ordinary sugar, and is as sweet as saccharin. almost. But even so, this is not the sweetest plant in the world. In the tropical rainforests from Sierra Leone to Zaire in West Africa, there is a particularly sweet plant called Tulipaceae. Scientists extracted a substance called "somartin" from this plant. According to measurements, its sweetness is actually sweeter than sugar. It is more than 3,000 times sweeter and was known as the "King of Sweetness" at the time. But later, scientists discovered a herbaceous plant called "Acathus" in the tropical forests of West Africa. Its red fruit is 30,000 times sweeter than sugar and 10 times sweeter than Sodinma. Everyone thinks that this plant should be regarded as the sweetest plant in the world. But later facts proved that was not the case.

Later, botanists discovered another vine in Africa. It had red coral-colored berries, which looked very cute like wild grapes. The sweet substance extracted by scientists from the fruit seeds is extremely sweet, and has been determined to be 90,000 times as sweet as table sugar. What is very interesting is that although this fruit is unbelievably sweet, after eating this fruit with extremely high sugar content, people not only do not feel tired, but also taste delicious, and the sweet taste in their mouths can still be maintained. It lasted for such a long time that local residents gave it a good name - "Exciting Fruit". But this unexpected result still cannot be called the "King of Sweetness".

There is also a "miracle fruit" that is sweeter than the "unexpected fruit". As long as you have eaten a little of its pulp beforehand, even if you eat something sour, salty, bitter and spicy, your mouth will still feel sweet because it contains the extremely sweet substance called "milacorin" of glycoproteins. At present, this miracle fruit has been planted in Fujian, Yunnan and other regions of my country.

This should be regarded as the sweetest plant in the world. However, scientists have discovered another plant called katanfi in the tropical rainforest of Ghana. The "katanfi" extracted from this plant has been measured to be 600,000 times sweeter than sucrose. It is five or six times more potent than the fruit of joy, thus it has won the title of "King of Sweetness" in the plant world and has become the sweetest plant in the world.