# Umami - Kikkoman's Spin for MSG **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 22, 2009, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661 "2009-06-22T23:04:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![keturah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e95f7d/32.png) [@keturah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keturah)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/21 "2009-06-23T05:18:17Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Oy vey. You must be a blast at parties. > > Whether or not these family of compounds are all identical, they have the same effect on the tongue. The reason anyone puts soy sauce on their food is to douse it with some sort of glutamate, mono-sodium or otherwise. Since MSG and its flavor enhancing friends all have a bad rap in the States… Kikkoman came up with the umami spin. > > I didn’t start this to get argumentative or pedantic with people. I was just pointing and laughing at the painfully transparent and manipulative marketing of Kikkoman’s ad agency. > _puts down bottle of soy sauce and slowly backs away_ Actually, glutamic acid is a non essential amino acid and is instrumental in making you, well, you. Just because you are irritated that MSG and glutamates share chemistry you should remember that as a non essential amino acid, your body will make it. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/22 "2009-06-23T05:42:10Z")
> [@keturah](#): > > I think maybe you do not understand chemistry. MSG and glutamic acid are not the same thing, not by a long shot. huh? Glutamic acid is in it’s negatively charged monoprotic state at physiologic pH. IOW it is a glutamate ion. You have sodium ions in your body all over the place. They are quite identical in your body and most food you would eat. How you get not the same by a long shot out of that is a mystery. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/23 "2009-06-23T05:43:43Z")
> [@keturah](#): > > Actually, glutamic acid is a non essential amino acid and is instrumental in making you, well, you. Just because you are irritated that MSG and glutamates share chemistry you should remember that as a non essential amino acid, your body will make it. Yuh huh. Thanks for the physiology lesson. I’m not irritated at all about anything concerning MSG or glutamates or amino acids or anything of the sort. I rather like them, in fact. I’m annoyed by lame marketing. Not sure where you’re going with this, or what your point is. I think I’m gonna go now. This thread is getting weird… ---
**Author:** ![keturah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e95f7d/32.png) [@keturah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keturah)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/24 "2009-06-23T05:56:42Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > huh? Glutamic acid is in it’s negatively charged monoprotic state at physiologic pH. IOW it is a glutamate ion. You have sodium ions in your body all over the place. They are quite identical in your body and most food you would eat. How you get not the same by a long shot out of that is a mystery. You understand that your body partitions ions, right? The sodium does not just run around willy-nilly. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/25 "2009-06-23T05:59:25Z")
You understand that MSG is a salt right? So the sodium is not bound to the glutamate. It doesn’t matter where the sodium is, your body will treat it the same way. ---
**Author:** ![keturah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e95f7d/32.png) [@keturah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keturah)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/26 "2009-06-23T06:14:44Z")
Yeah, I understand. As you said, MSG is a salt. Glutamic acid is not a salt. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/27 "2009-06-23T06:15:57Z")
> [@keturah](#): > > Yeah, I understand. As you said, MSG is a salt. Glutamic acid is not a salt. Glutamic acid is a salt in your body. That first proton has a pKa of about 4. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/28 "2009-06-23T06:35:08Z")
From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste#Basic_taste) > [@Wikipedia Article](#): > > Basic taste > > Psychophysicists have long suggested the existence of four taste ‘primaries’, referred to as the basic tastes: sweetness, bitterness, sourness and saltiness. Although first described in 1908, umami is only recently recognized as the fifth basic taste since the cloning of a specific amino acid taste receptor in 2002. **Umami taste is exemplified by the non-salty sensations evoked by some free amino acids such as monosodium glutamate.** Just wanted to point that out, FWIW. ---
**Author:** ![keturah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e95f7d/32.png) [@keturah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keturah)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/29 "2009-06-23T06:35:37Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > Glutamic acid is a salt in your body. That first proton has a pKa of about 4. I’m not sure what you are trying to say here. Yes, the pKa is about 4. Thank goodness you have bodily partitions that prevent proton transfer. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/30 "2009-06-23T06:41:41Z")
Proton transfer has nothing to do with it. Are you suggesting that your body is keeping that proton associated with the glutamate ion somehow? I can assure you that your bodily pH is heavily buffered. Of course you can go the other way. Your gastric juices have a pH of less than 1 which is more than low enough to protonate MSG. So MSG in your stomach is glutamic acid. ---
**Author:** ![keturah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e95f7d/32.png) [@keturah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keturah)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/31 "2009-06-23T07:07:11Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > Proton transfer has nothing to do with it. Are you suggesting that your body is keeping that proton associated with the glutamate ion somehow? I can assure you that your bodily pH is heavily buffered. > > Of course you can go the other way. Your gastric juices have a pH of less than 1 which is more than low enough to protonate MSG. So MSG in your stomach is glutamic acid. Oh, fercrissakes, all I am suggesting is that we do in fact have and use glutamic acid in our bodies. I left organic chemistry behind a few years back and do not want to continue this line, I was initially responding to the idea that chemicals (read MSG and glutamic acid) are bad with a capital B. Chemicals are what we, and all we eat are. The other day I saw a label for sugar and prominently on the front it claimed to be carbon free. It irritates me. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/32 "2009-06-23T07:14:17Z")
> [@keturah](#): > > Oh, fercrissakes, all I am suggesting is that we do in fact have and use glutamic acid in our bodies. I left organic chemistry behind a few years back and do not want to continue this line, I was initially responding to the idea that chemicals (read MSG and glutamic acid) are bad with a capital B. Chemicals are what we, and all we eat are. The other day I saw a label for sugar and prominently on the front it claimed to be carbon free. It irritates me. My point is that MSG is, indeed, not bad. However, there’s a wide misconception in the West that it is, that probably started in the 1970s. Hence the need for companies that make “liquid glutamate” to put a spin on it. With me? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/33 "2009-06-23T07:38:20Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > Glutamic acid is a salt in your body. That first proton has a pKa of about 4. To me, soy sauce is just a different way to salt your food. Whether or not it has something to create an umami flavor I don’t know, but it obviously has the flavor of fermented soy. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/34 "2009-06-23T13:06:02Z")
> [@keturah](#): > > You understand that your body partitions ions, right? The sodium does not just run around willy-nilly. :p:p:p;) ---
**Author:** ![Granuaile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Granuaile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Granuaile)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/35 "2009-06-23T13:26:03Z")
::wipes a tear:: This is why I’ve been coming back to The Dope for the past 10 yrs. Only on the SDMB could a thread about soy sauce turn into an organic chemistry debate. Quick question: Is MSG sensitivity a (pardon the phrase) “white thing?” FWIW, I’m half asian, U.S. born and bred. Whenever I’ve told people my childhood habit of eating MSG straight out of the bag, the non asians look at me as if I’m radioactive but the asians usually say something like “Try making a sandwich outta it! That’s some good eatin’!” ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/36 "2009-06-23T13:45:22Z")
When I was younger I struggled with painful, agonizing perforated ulcers. Their appearance seemed to coincide very closely with Sunday buffets at a favorite Chinese food place, so that drove me to avoid MSG like the plague. That continued for years, checking every ingredients list at the grocery. Recently though I apparently forgot to check before buying some seasoned salt loaded with MSG and used it quite frequently and with no ill effects. I wonder if it was something else that bothered me before or if your body’s tolerance for it can change over the years. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/37 "2009-06-23T14:25:18Z")
[Here is Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker article](http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_09_06_a_ketchup.html)on why gourmet ketchup has not taken off - it speaks a lot to umami in America… …and \*\*Granuaile \*\*- I agree about the O-Chem snerk…I love it when geeks collide! As for your “white thing” question, I will say that MSG was portrayed for decades as being unhealthy, leading to allergic reactions and other ills (see lieu’s post) - but if it is turning out that MSG is “harmless” then I wonder if there were other causes or just a mental association… ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/38 "2009-06-23T15:25:54Z")
[QUOTE=WordMan] … I will say that MSG was portrayed for decades as being unhealthy, leading to allergic reactions and other ills (see lieu’s post) - but if it is turning out that MSG is “harmless” then I wonder if there were other causes or just a mental association… [/QUOTE] A while back, I saw a “taste test” involving MSG. More people in the group that were served food without MSG had psychosomatic responses and claimed that there was MSG in their food than people in the group that did get MSG in their food. It was like “Oh wow, there was \*so \*much MSG in that! I can feel the headache coming on now…” Sorry you’ve got a headache, but there was no MSG in your food. For some people, just the thought of Chinese food = MSG. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/39 "2009-06-23T15:54:50Z")
> [@Granuaile](#): > > ::wipes a tear:: > > This is why I’ve been coming back to The Dope for the past 10 yrs. Only on the SDMB could a thread about soy sauce turn into an organic chemistry debate. > > Quick question: Is MSG sensitivity a (pardon the phrase) “white thing?” FWIW, I’m half asian, U.S. born and bred. Whenever I’ve told people my childhood habit of eating MSG straight out of the bag, the non asians look at me as if I’m radioactive but the asians usually say something like “Try making a sandwich outta it! That’s some good eatin’!” Alleged sensitivities to MSG are pretty much completely imaginary. I suppose it’s a western thing to _imagine_ that MSG causes side effects, but there is no evidence that it actually does. Self-reported effects are not consistent with blind tests. There was an episode of _Food Detectives_ not too long ago in which a bunch of diners in a restaurant were told that half of them had MSG in their food and half did not. The half that thought they had MSG in their predictably began performing their side-effects, complaining about headaches, stating with utter certainty how clearly they could detect the MSG, etc. Then it was revealed that no one in the room had been given MSG. I was disappointed that they didn’t really show how these people reacted to having their imaginary “sensitivities” exposed for the drama-queen delusions that they were. By the way, perhaps I shoudn’t reveal this, but I once worked in a Chinese restaurant, and let’s just say that more than one order for “no MSG” went out with MSG in it. Some of the pre-made sauces already had it in there, it was time-consuming to make a new batch from scratch, and the people can’t really tell the difference anyway. I wasn’t aware of one person ever being able to tell, or having any ill effect. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661/40 "2009-06-23T16:26:04Z")
The placebo effect is, indeed, a strange thing. I don’t know why people tell themselves the things they do sometimes (subconsciously or otherwise). _chomps happily into some more Doritos_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/umami-kikkomans-spin-for-msg/500661.md?page=3)