Today’s topic is a return to the world of biochemistry with a discussion of Benedict’s test- used to test for reducing sugars and, with some modifications, non-reducing sugars. We won’t be discussing the precise methodology- and the subtle differences in methods/reagents between the sources I accessed- but we’ll discuss what exactly a reducing sugar is and introduce the topic of food tests along the way.
Sources for this episode: 1) Fullick A., Locke, J. and Bircher, P. (2015), A Level Biology for OCR A. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2) Hine, R. (2019), A Dictionary of Biology (Oxford Quick Reference), 8th edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 3) Thain, M. and Hickman, M. (2014), Dictionary of Biology (Eleventh Edition). London: Penguin Books Ltd. 4) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Benedict’s reagent (online) [Accessed 12/03 and 02/04/2022]. 5) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Stanley Rossiter Benedict (online) [Accessed 12/03/2022].