Monosodium Glutamate...More Than Just Taste

This page provides sound, reliable scientific information so that you can fully understand monosodium glutamate (MSG), a common flavour enhancer, and use it to bring out the very best in your food.

Flavour obviously enhances dining pleasure. It also aids proper digestion and is vital to maintaining a healthy appetite and good physical condition. So, you should understand and consider flavour and nutritional value to cook tasty, balanced meals.
 

Your Fifth Basic Taste

Glutamate is an amino acid found in a variety of foods. Glutamate's taste is to cheese, tomatoes and meat what sweetness is to sugar, sourness is to lemons, saltiness is to anchovies and bitterness is to coffee.

A Japanese scientist discovered the flavour-enhancing properties of glutamate in 1908, when he isolated the subtance from seaweed. Glutamate-rich ingredients have been used to enhance flavour throughout the world for centuries in European, Chinese and Japanese soup stock and as a base for Southeast Asian fish sauces.
 

Umami - More than just taste

A little stock goes a long way on flavour, something that cooks the world over long understood. But they didn't know that glutamate was the secret of the success of their stocks-an amazing fifth basic taste called umami. This Japanese word loosely means "savoury" or "brothy." Umami is so subtle that it took until this century for researchers to confirm its existence.

Umami is unlike the other basic tastes (sweet, sour, salt and bitter) and is fundamental to many living things. Many scientists agree that this could be because umami signals the presence of protein in food. Similarly, sweetness indicates energy-giving carbohydrates. Bitterness alerts us to toxins. Saltiness is a sign that our bodies need minerals.
 

Natural Goodness

Glutamate is found in "free" and "bound" forms. The latter term means that the glutamate is linked with other amino acids in proteins. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, which is an important component of muscles and other tissues. Your body also produces 40-50 grams of glutamate daily. This substance is vital for normal metabolisms. The muscles, brain and other organs and tissues contain 1.5-2 kilograms of glutamate, mainly in bound form.

The "free" form of glutamate enhances food flavours. Tomatoes, cheese and mushrooms are just some free glutamate-rich foods long prized for their taste. The free glutamate content of food increases during natural ripening, which brings out a fuller taste in many foods. Human breast milk contains 10 times more free glutamate than cow's milk.
 

What is MSG?

Monosodium glutamate is a water-soluble, pure, white crystalline form of glutamate. It has been used for nearly a century to enhance flavour. It is made using a fermentation process similar to that used for beer, wine, soy sauce and vinegar.

Many mistakenly believe that it is made from chemicals. Not at all. The most common source is molasses from sugar beet or cane.