A Program You Can’t Afford To Miss: Where can you find speakers from Bacardi, Turkey Hill, Yuengling Brewing Company and Swisher International all under one roof? The NAFFS Annual Convention to be held October 12-15 in Longboat Key, Florida offers an educational program featuring these industry leaders and an exceptional environment to meet and network with industry peers.

The program kicks off with a networking reception Thursday evening. On Friday morning attendees will hear Jim Sornson, technical services manager of Swisher International, talk about various flavor systems transforming the tobacco market. The program continues with John Hallagan, FEMA’s general counsel, who will describe how to obtain expert assistance on respiratory health and safety in flavor manufacturing and detail the latest developments on flavor industry lawsuits. Next Ted Bateh, operations leader for the New Products Group at Bacardi-Martini and Andy del Rosal, senior project & information technology manager at Bacardi will cover how this industry leader manages beverage formulas worldwide – from the lab to the plant. Friday’s session concludes with John Houseman, plant manager/brewmaster of Yuengling Brewing Company covering the latest trends in the next generation of beers. Attendees will also be treated to a delightful sampling of products!

Saturday’s program features Tom Wright, vice president RD & marketing of Turkey Hill, who will explore the marketing strategies that made Turkey Hill a household name on the East Coast and deliver the latest trends in Turkey Hill’s ice cream and beverage lines. Save room for ice cream as attendees will experience first-hand one of Turkey Hill’s popular flavors! Saturday’s program also includes the latest update on legal and regulatory issues impacting the flavor industry by Pat McNamara, partner, Scarinci & Hollenbeck. The convention concludes on Saturday evening with a reception and dinner with live entertainment and awards from the weekend’s events!

Hotel: Hotel reservations must be made by September 11 to be guaranteed the NAFFS discounted room rates. Be sure to indicate you are with the NAFFS convention to get the special rate and room of your choice. For reservations, call 800-237-8821.

Register now at www.naffs.org!

Scientists say they have identified two proteins responsible for the perception of sourness, a taste that up until now has been poorly understood.

Dr. Hiroaki Matsunami at Duke University Medical Center, the lead scientist on the study, indicated this is the first study to define how humans perceive sour taste. Identification of these proteins, called PKD1L3 and PKD2L1, could lead to ways to manipulate the perception of taste in order to fool the mouth that something sour, such as some children's medicines or health foods, tastes sweet, he said.

Previous research into taste revealed that the human tongue has about 10,000 taste buds with five taste sensations: sweet, bitter, and umami, which work with a signal through a G-protein coupled receptor; while salty and sour have been proposed to work with ion channels. The science behind bitter, sweet, and umami tastes has been extensively studied, according to the researchers, but understanding of sour and salty taste perception is poor and even confusing.

Matsunami and his team used fluorescent tags to label the subsets of cells that are known to be responsible for bitter, sweet, and umami taste, as well as the subsets of cells that express PKD1L3 and PKD2L1. The two proteins are said to combine to form "ion channels" that control the flow of calcium ions, in and out of the taste cells. This flow of ions controls the electrical signals that are sent from the cells to the brain in response to various stimuli. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers stimulated mouse cells expressing PDK1L3 and PKD2L1 with various taste chemicals to identify which stimuli caused a response in the ion channels. This was achieved by loading the cells with calcium-sensitive fluorescent dyes - one dye glowed green in response to high calcium concentrations, the other glowed red when the concentration was low. In the presence of sour acids, the researchers report a change of color from red to green, which indicated that the ion channel had opened in response to the sour taste. No color change was recorded in the presence of salty, sweet, or bitter solutions.

The next step, according to Matsunami, is to use this finding to screen for chemicals that can block the function of these sour taste cells. The research also could lead to a better understanding of how the sense of taste functions neurologically, he said. "We still do not know what is happening in the brain - that is, exactly how the brain would interpret the signals coming from the tongue to tell the difference between lemons and lemonade," Matsunami said.

Contrary to popular understanding, taste is not experienced on different parts of the tongue. Though there are small differences in sensation, which can be measured with highly specific instruments, all taste buds, essentially clusters of 50 to 100 cells, can respond to all types of taste.

The antioxidant content of tea could mean that drinking three or more cups a day could reduce the risk of a wide range of health problems, ranging from cancer to heart disease, and may even be healthier than water, according to a review from Britain published in Nutra.Ingredients.com.

"Drinking tea is actually better for you than drinking water. Water is essentially replacing fluid. Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so it has two things going for it,” reviewer Dr Carrie Ruxton from Nutrition Communications told the BBC.

Interest in tea has mostly focused on green tea, with consumption linked to a wide range of health benefits, including lower risk of certain cancers, weight loss, and protection against Alzheimer’s. The health benefits have been linked to the polyphenol content of the tea. Green tea contains between 30 and 40 per cent of water-extractable polyphenols, while black tea (green tea that has been oxidized by fermentation) contains between 3 and 10 per cent.

The four primary polyphenols found in fresh tealeaves are epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and epicatechin.

The Nominating Committee will be meeting soon to nominate candidates for the NAFFS Board of Directors. If you have any suggestions for nominations, please contact the NAFFS office.

Be sure to save these dates when filling in your calendars:

October 12-15 – NAFFS 89th Annual Convention, The Resort at Longboat Key Club, Longboat Key, Fla.