Applications in nutrition: Peptides as taste enhancers

Taste is a significant attribute in food that affects food quality and purchasing desire of consumers. Peptides serve as important taste-active compounds in food. They can exhibit bitter, salty, sweet, sour, and kokumi taste and also play a significant role in taste enhancement of food. In this chapter, some recently food-derived, taste-active peptides with umami, bitter, salty, and kokumi taste were briefly reviewed. Also, the respective taste receptors for these taste-active peptides were described. Besides, their structural characteristics in relation to different taste attributes were emphatically discussed. This chapter summarizes the research progress of some representative taste-active peptides, which contributes to the development of food-derived peptides as taste enhancers.