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Description
The plant is a perennial herb native to southern Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, Colombia, and Venezuela. It is commonly known as the Aztec sweet herb, bushy lippia, honey herb, or hierba dulce, used as a natural sweetener and medicinal herb in its native Mexico and parts of Central America. The Aztecs used it and introduced it to the Spanish when they arrived. A compound called Hernandulcin, whose sweetness is about 1,000 times higher than in sucrose, provides the plant’s sweet taste.The plant has low Hernandulcin production in its tissues. Despite its sweetness, it isn’t used in the natural sweetener industry due to its complexity, difficulty in chemical synthesis, and the presence of another camphor. This aromatic compound gives an unpleasant taste to the natural extract.
Publication Date
5-5-2021
Department
College of Agriculture and Human Sciences
Date of Digitization
8/3/2021
Document Version
Final Version
County
Waller
Contributing Institution
John B Coleman Library
City of Publication
Prairie View
Media Type
Document
Rights
© 2021 Prairie View A & M University
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
MIME Type
Application/PDF
Publisher
Prairie View A&M University
Keywords
phyla dulcis, sweet herb, bushy lippia, honey herb, Aztecs
Disciplines
Agricultural Education | Agricultural Science | Food Microbiology
Recommended Citation
Weerasooriya, A., Osuji, G., Carson, L., Ampim, P., Bandara, S., Obeng, E., & Woldesenbet, S. (2021). CAHS researchers receive provisional patent for potential plant sweetener. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.pvamu.edu/datasets-collection/1