ACCENT, which is basically MSG, is supposed to make “All good food taste better.” Aside from containing salt, which presumably adds taste, it also contains MSG, which, I think affects the way we taste things. I read again today in Cook’s magazine - clearly a scholarly publication - that autolyzed yeast extract “amplifies flavors” and works like MSG in that the molecules “boost the flavor of beef by as much as 20- fold.” Now, I can’t understand how it can change the molecule’s ability to be tasted, so I’m guessing it does something to our body’s ability to detect it and that’s what’s meant by “amplifies flavor.” But maybe not. I once posed this question to the Great Master, but he may have been out of town that day. How does MSG, or autolyzed yeast extract, for that matter, boost flavor?
Besides the 4 “Classical” tastes on the tongue, we have at least a fifth - MSG receptors along with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. (Some have theorized a sixth “fat” receptor.) So MSG is a full-fledged flavor just as much as salt and sugar are. Now, I’m not sure if meats contain a lot of MSG or MSG-equivalents, but I would assume so, since MSG tastes “meaty”. Maybe adding a certain amount of MSG enhances “meaty” taste 20-fold.
I’d doubt it makes all good food taste better - do you really want a meat-flavored soft drink?
The people in the Invader Zim-verse would!
MEAT!
MSG is monosodium glutamate, i.e., the sodium salt of glutamic acid. Glutamic acid is a kind of amino acid, which are the building blocks of proteins. Meat is mostly protein, not necessarily composed of all glutamic acid, but I guess you could consider amino acids to be MSG-equivalents.
FYI, the term for this fifth taste is umami.
And glutamate is what triggers the umami taste bud.
In The Man Who Ate Everything Jeffrey Steingarten says that parmesan and tomato paste are very high in glutamate. I would guess that anything that has the umami quality is very high in msg equivalents. Oddly, no one has ever reported headaches from Italian food. Maybe because msg is more concentrated?
The Man Who Ate Everything is a great book.
If you do some searching, you can find a study showing that when most people who had MSG allergies were fed MSG in a controlled setting without their knowledge, the symptom did not manifest.
More likely it’s because the MSG-headache connection has not been scientifically proven.
Indeed. Glutamate is also present in asparagus and peas, but who complains about veggie headaches? I believe the only proven side effect of MSG is that it makes food taste delicious.
That was meant to be snarky. Sorry the sarcasm didn’t come through. I am also sceptical of msg sensitivity.
my kids do whenever I feed them broccoli!
Thanks! I’ve often wondered why so many people I know really “hated” MSG, but cleaned their plates when dining chez Jali with no negative side effects.
I add a little to certain dishes and I can really tell the difference.
My girlfriend has a very serious allergy to MSG that causes her to break out in hives, and have difficulty breathing. She’s had to be taken to the hospital on more than one occasion because of a bad reaction to the stuff. The allergy is so severe, even just having a bit of MSG touch her skin will cause it to blister in the area exposed.
Since being with her, it’s amazing to find out the number of food products that contain MSG…Doritos, Cheetos, and most other cheese-flavored chips or crackers, many fast food chicken products (though KFC no longer uses it in their chicken), and of course, a lot of asian food.
Does she avoid tomatoes, too?