Text 1

Soy sauce, made from fermented soybeans, is noted for its umami flavor. Ummi--one of the five basic tastes along with sweet, bitter, salty, and sour--was formally classified when its taste receptors were discovered in the 2000s. In 2007, to define the pure umami flavor scientists Rie Ishii and Michael O'Mahony used broths made from shiitake mushrooms and kombu seaweed, and two panels of Japanese and US judges closely agreed on a description of the taste.

Text 2

A 2022 experiment by Manon Junger et al. led to a greater understanding of soy sauce's flavor profile. The team initially presented a mixture of compounds with low molecular weights to taste testers who found it was not as salty or bitter as real soy sauce. Further analysis of soy sauce identified proteins, including dipeptides, that enhanced umami flavor and also contributed to saltiness. The team then made a mix of 50 chemical compounds that re-created soy sauce's flavor.

Based on the texts, if Ishii and O'Mahony (Text 1) and Junger et al. (Text 2) were aware of the findings of both experiments, they would most likely agree with which statement?

Question

Text 1

Soy sauce, made from fermented soybeans, is noted for its umami flavor. Ummi--one of the five basic tastes along with sweet, bitter, salty, and sour--was formally classified when its taste receptors were discovered in the 2000s. In 2007, to define the pure umami flavor scientists Rie Ishii and Michael O'Mahony used broths made from shiitake mushrooms and kombu seaweed, and two panels of Japanese and US judges closely agreed on a description of the taste.

Text 2

A 2022 experiment by Manon Junger et al. led to a greater understanding of soy sauce's flavor profile. The team initially presented a mixture of compounds with low molecular weights to taste testers who found it was not as salty or bitter as real soy sauce. Further analysis of soy sauce identified proteins, including dipeptides, that enhanced umami flavor and also contributed to saltiness. The team then made a mix of 50 chemical compounds that re-created soy sauce's flavor.

Based on the texts, if Ishii and O'Mahony (Text 1) and Junger et al. (Text 2) were aware of the findings of both experiments, they would most likely agree with which statement?

Accepted Answer

The broths in the 2007 experiment most likely did not have a substantial amount of the dipeptides that played a key part in the 2022 experiment.

Answer

On average, the diets of people in the United States tend to have fewer foods that contain certain dipeptides than the diets of people in Japan have.

Answer

Chemical compounds that activate both the umami and salty taste receptors tend to have a higher molecular weight than those that only activate umami taste receptors.

Answer

Fermentation introduces proteins responsible for the increase of umami flavor in soy sauce, and those proteins also increase the perception of saltiness.