One of the most frequent questions I get when speaking about my book is the MSG question. My talk is about L-glutamate, the taste of umami and veal stock (it makes a little more sense if you've read the book) and, before I get to the punchline, I'm inevitably interrupted by someone insisting that MSG is toxic.* I will now refer all interested parties to this Times article:
Even now, after "Chinese restaurant syndrome" has been thoroughly debunked (virtually all studies since then confirm that monosodium glutamate in normal concentrations has no effect on the overwhelming majority of people), the ingredient has a stigma that will not go away.But then, neither will MSG.
Cooks around the world have remained dedicated to MSG, even though they may not know it by that name. As hydrolyzed soy protein or autolyzed yeast, it adds flavor to the canned chicken broth and to the packs of onion soup mix used by American home cooks, and to the cheese Goldfish crackers and the low-fat yogurts in many lunchboxes.
It is the taste of Marmite in the United Kingdom, of Golden Mountain sauce in Thailand, of Goya Sazón on the Latin islands of the Caribbean, of Salsa Lizano in Costa Rica and of Kewpie mayonnaise in Japan.
"It's all the same thing: glutamate," said Dr. Nuripa Chaudhari of the University of Miami, who was part of the first research team to identify human glutamate receptors.
And, as I argue in my book, glutamate is also the taste of veal stock and classic French culinary technique. The pioneering achievement of Auguste Escoffier, the chef who helped invent modern French cuisine, was getting as much denatured glutamate on the plate as possible.
What I find most fascinating about this fifth taste is that it was neglected by science for so long. Even after chefs constructed entire cuisines around the potency of glumatate, and food companies were putting MSG in everything from bouillon cubes to Marmite, the science of the tongue remained tethered to this Aristotelian idea that there were four, and only four, taste sensations (sweet, sour, salty and bitter). But how do those four taste sensations explain the allure of parmesan cheese or the rich taste of a demi-glace or the mouth-filling allure of a porcini mushroom pasta? The answer is simple: they don't.
*My guess is that people latched onto MSG as the cause of migraines - the so-called "Chinese food syndrome" - because glutamate is also a neurotransmitter. Thus, it makes sense that monosodium glutamate might have some psychoactive properties.
Brain & Behavior
Comments (11)
It is more MSG is used to make fat rats & mice for animal testing because they eat more when fed MSG. So the only reason to add MSG to food is to get you to eat more.
At least that is one of the reasons I've seen.
Posted by: Who Cares | March 5, 2008 5:25 PM