Brazzein ice cream and a thiol-making yeast

Two results from the same fortnight, pointing at the same idea from opposite ends: get the effect you want from something the organism makes, rather than something you add.

Brazzein, in a real format

A study reported on 11 October found ice cream sweetened with the sweet protein brazzein caused smaller blood sugar spikes than the sugar version — the effect being most pronounced in people with type 2 diabetes. The researchers called for longer-term studies.

What makes this worth noting is the format. Sweetener work is usually done in beverages, where the matrix is simple and the only real variable is the sweetness curve. Ice cream is not a simple matrix. Sugar in frozen dairy is doing structural work — it depresses the freezing point, controls ice crystal size, and carries mouthfeel. Removing it is a texture problem at least as much as a taste one, which is why a sweetener result in ice cream says more than the same result in a soft drink.

It is still one study, with the authors themselves asking for longer-term work, so treat it as direction rather than evidence.

A yeast that makes its own thiols

Separately, Health Canada has reportedly cleared a genetically modified brewing yeast that releases a thiol during fermentation, producing guava, passion fruit and grapefruit notes.

This one is cleverer than it first sounds. Thiols are extraordinarily powerful — perceptible at vanishingly low concentrations — and correspondingly fragile. They oxidise, they bind, and they are difficult to deliver through a process and a shelf life intact. Generating them in situ during fermentation sidesteps the delivery problem entirely: the compound appears where and when it is wanted, rather than being added and then defended.

The catch, and it is not a technical one

It is a genetically modified organism, which makes this a labelling and acceptance question before it is a flavour question — and the answer differs by market.

That is precisely what the EU's Omnibus X package is about: the Council's position would clarify that qualifying fermentation products made with genetically modified microorganisms are not automatically treated as "produced from GMOs". Where that lands decides whether approaches like this are commercially viable in Europe at all, regardless of how well they work.

A clearance in one jurisdiction is a starting point, not a route to market.

Reporting: Al Jazeera · Flavour and Fragrance Journal · flavorist.com