This is a great find. One thing — they make all of the ingredient amounts crystal clear in Table 1, except for the sodium alginate and the pectin. They say “total polysaccharide concentration was 0.2% (in the dissolved drink) and the ratio of alginate to pectin was 60 : 40.” Elsewhere in the paper they just refer to it as “0.2 wt%”.
Can someone explain to me the math, because doing what I would think is correct — multiplying their 201g of water by the 0.2% concentration (201*0.002) — comes out to an absurdly low number of 0.4g of total polysaccharide, and the 60:40 split would then mean .24g of alginate and .16g of pectin. Can that be correct?
I also can’t seem to work backwards on their “14 wt%” of carb content in order to confirm how they’re running the math. In the test drink, they are using 201g of water and 31.7g of carb. 14% of 201g is 28.14g, which doesn’t match. Doing the math the other way, 31.7/201 results in 15.7%.
On the control drink, they’re using the same 31.7g of carb, but the water content is 224. 31.7/224 = 14.15%, but why would that match the weight but the test drink wouldn’t?
Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.