Sweet Fruit

We all know that the sugar in fruit are fructose; the most sweet natural sugar. Fructose is also had the highest relative sweetness (around 178?) in all sugar. (excluding the artificial sugar) But did you know, where these sugar in the fruit came from? Well, before that, let's get back to basic. The monomer of sugar, (the most basic) is Glucose. There are also other monomer of sugar, such as Galactose and Fructose. When any of these combine, it could make a dissacharide (Saccharide=sugar in latin). These trend continues, when 3-10 sugar combine, it is called oligosaccahride and when there are more than 10, it is polyssacharide.

Some example of Polysaccharide are Cellulose, Pectin, Lignin, and many other else. Note that the skin of the fruit is consist of Cellulose. This is a clue to where the fructose come from. So, as the fruit ripen, the skin thinning, and so it fall to the ground. Another clue.

Let's review the basic of fruits. The fruit is basically made of plant cell. Whereas plant cell had a special outer layer called the cell wall (Animal cell only had cell membrane). The cell wall is made of a polysaccharide; Cellulose. So at the time fruit developed, the cell wall thickens. But however, as the fruit ripe, the fruit skin is thinning. You could see this is some asian fruits such as Oranges; where the skin will be thin by the time you will be able to pluck it. How did this happen?

As we all know, enzymes are everywhere in the world. Even in fruits. So as to the answer where the sweet flavour of fruit came from, it came from the skin of the fruit. As the fruit ripen, the enzyme cellulase digest the celullose of the fruit into fructose and other monomer of sugar. This process actually increase the sugar contents in fruits. But however, the fruits will be more susceptible to damage from microbe or physical contact. Some example of fruits like this are the Oranges as mentioned before.  So, once something good is in, remember that bad thing are also around the corner.

That's Mother Nature for you.

Cheers