Monosodium glutamate is a chemical. And like any chemical, it is harmful to the body. Does it? Let’s find out.
Sodium salts
What is sodium glutamate? It is a glutamic acid in which one of the Hydrogen (H) atoms has been replaced with a Sodium (Na) atom.
Just as if you replace the hydrogen in hydrochloric acid (HCl) with sodium, you get NaCl, sodium chloride, better known as “salt,” which we all have in our kitchens.
Or if you replace one of the hydrogen in carbonic acid (H2CO3) with sodium, you get NaHCO3 – sodium hydrogen carbonate, known in wide circles as “baking soda” (which is also chemically a salt – the sodium salt of carbonic acid).
In other words, Sodium itself is not so scary. What’s more, it’s an important element that makes it possible for signals to travel through the nerves. It also plays a key role in regulating fluid volume in the body.
Glutamate
If Sodium is not dangerous, then maybe glutamate is?
Just like with salt and soda, glutamate is also a salt. The salt of Glutamic Acid. What is this acid? It is one of the 20 amino acids (amino acids are also acids) that make up the proteins of all living things. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. And proteins are the main compounds in our body that make us who we are. That is, glutamic acid is initially present in every cell of our body, and in considerable quantities – there is about 1 kg of it in every human body. It’s not some foreign substance.
Read more about the role of proteins in our bodies in this article
Why does monosodium glutamate enhance taste
In fact, to say that monosodium glutamate enhances flavor is incorrect. The reason for this is a mistranslation of the English name “flavor enhancer. Its correct name is “flavor enhancer”. That is, it will not intensify the taste – it will not, for example, make an unpleasant taste even more unpleasant. It does not make sour taste more sour. It improves the taste. That is, it can make an unpleasant taste more palatable.
How does it do this? On our tongue, in addition to the traditional papillae that recognize tastes – bitter, sour, salty, sweet – there are special papillae that respond to protein-rich foods, because proteins are very important to the body. More specifically, these papillae respond to amino acids. Any amino acid, but best of all, glutamic amino acid. This is probably because this amino acid is the most abundant in meat (animal muscle), the main human protein food. In meat, glutamic amino acid accounts for 20% of all amino acids. In general, it is the most abundant amino acid in nature.
Moreover, these papillae respond better specifically to the amino acid associated with sodium (in fact, not necessarily with sodium, you can also, for example, with potassium, or other elements, but they chose sodium because it is easier to obtain). This is why salted meat tastes better than unleavened meat.
So we can say that monosodium glutamate gives food a more “meaty” taste.
Where is monosodium glutamate contained
Monosodium glutamate is also present in bread and other flour products, even if it is not specially added. The fact is that flour, consisting of wheat, also contains proteins, and therefore also glutamic amino acid. In the process of making dough, salt is added to it, so that the “terrible” compound is formed.
The same pattern of naturally occurring monosodium glutamate also appears in soy sauce (soy + salt).
Glutamate is found in tomatoes, green tea, mushrooms, meat, cheese, grape juice, kimchi, and many other foods. It is even found in breast milk.
Can I eat monosodium glutamate in large amounts? There is no evidence of negative effects of monosodium glutamate on the human body when eaten in amounts that seem reasonable. There is also no scientific evidence that prolonged human consumption of monosodium glutamate in moderate amounts can lead to physiological disorders.
How to make monosodium glutamate
And even fears related to the fact that the substance is produced in chemical laboratories are unnecessary. Although there is nothing wrong with the production of substances by chemical laboratories, monosodium glutamate is not produced by mixing different chemicals. The fact is that it is not economically viable to obtain this substance on an industrial scale. The result is almost identical L- and D-molecules of monosodium glutamate. These are mirrored molecules (from the Latin lævus for “left” and dexter for “right”). Except that D-amino acids are not used in humans (although they are found in other animals). They are not harmful, just since they are turned the other way around, they can’t be used correctly to build a protein, so they are not used and are useless. And consequently, the receptors of the tongue do not respond to sodium D-glutamate either.
It is much more economically advantageous for a certain kind of bacteria to produce sodium glutamate. Bacteria, like all other living organisms, are themselves living biological chemical laboratories, converting some substances into other substances. Like, for example, yeast bacteria, which have been serving humans for 8,000 years.
So monosodium glutamate in terms of technical regulations, is a natural substance.
Where did the fear of monosodium glutamate originally come from
In 1908, Japanese chemist Ikeda Kikunae noticed that food in which kombu algae was added had a characteristic taste that differed from the traditional division into salty, sweet, sour and bitter. He called this fifth, “meaty,” flavor umami (Japanese for “pleasant taste”). He discovered that this flavor is caused by a sodium glutamate extracted from the algae.
His invention revolutionized cooking. Any salty food tasted better with sodium glutamate. And even Buddhist vegetarians used it in their meals.
But in 1968 he wrote a letter to a medical journal: “I feel a strange syndrome every time I eat in a Chinese restaurant… “general fatigue and rapid heart rate… monosodium glutamate may be responsible for these symptoms.” This caused an uproar in the press, who associated the alleged symptoms with Chinese food. But after that, there was no confirmation of a link between monosodium glutamate and these symptoms. And in 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded “We have never been able to confirm that monosodium glutamate causes the reported symptoms.
You can also read the article: How harmful are preservatives
Additional questions
Can monosodium glutamate cause being overweight? Click on the arrow to see the answer
Directly, it can’t. That is, it doesn’t change processes in the body that made it produce more fat, for example. Indirectly, it can. Monosodium glutamate makes food tastier. And tasty food makes you want to eat more. More food means a bigger belly.With monosodium glutamate, the body thinks you’re eating protein food and the stomach secretes enzymes that break down proteins. And since the proteins aren’t really there, are these enzymes destroying the proteins of the stomach itself?
No. If these enzymes could break down the proteins of the stomach, they could do so even if there is protein food in the stomach. But the surface of the stomach is covered with special cells that prevent the digestive enzymes from interacting with the proteins of the stomach walls. Therefore, the stomach does not digest itself.
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