Why monosodium glutamate is not as dangerous as people think

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Certain foods should not be avoided precisely because of the presence of this food additive in them.

110 years ago, on July 25, 1908, the Japanese chemist Ikeda Kikunae filed with The chronicle of the Ajinomoto Group a patent application for the production of monosodium glutamate, a substance he isolated from the kombu seaweed popular in Japanese cuisine. Since then, monosodium glutamate has been used as a dietary supplement that gives food the umami - the taste of high-protein foods. At the same time, the supplement itself does not have the best reputation. We recall the history of the appearance of monosodium glutamate and figure out whether it is worth being afraid of.

Traditionally, since Antiquity, there have been four basic tastes that distinguish a person and his taste buds (by the way, not separately, as is usually taught at school, but together), and each of them was determined by the chemical characteristics of the products and their interaction with the human body. So, the sour taste is determined by the acidity of the product, the salty taste is felt thanks to the ions of sodium and some other metals (in the people - table salt), which are perceived by the receptors of the ion channels in the tongue, and the activation of the receptors associated with G-proteins is responsible for the sensation of sweetness - and the same processes are responsible for the bitter taste.

It is curious that for many centuries people have felt another, fifth taste, which could not be described or named until the beginning of the last century. Everything changed thanks to the Japanese chemist Ikeda Kikunae, who worked at the University of Tokyo at the beginning of the 20th century. The scientist was intrigued by the taste of the dashi broth, which is used as the basis for many Japanese dishes: it can be described as "soft", salty, but not salty and unlike any of the four common tastes.

Traditionally, dashi are made on the basis of kombu kelp (Laminaria japonica); Ikeda suggested that a substance can be obtained from kombu, which gives it a special taste. The scientist managed to extract glutamic acid - a white crystalline powder, odorless. Ikeda called its taste umami (from 旨 味 - "pleasant"): if you can't remember it right off the bat, good examples of umami foods are parmesan and dishes flavored with soy sauce.

In order to use glutamic acid for industrial purposes, Ikeda synthesized salt - monosodium glutamate from soy and wheat proteins, for which he immediately received a patent. In the early 1920s, the Japanese company Ajinomoto began commercial production of monosodium glutamate (first as a separate seasoning) in the early 1920s (under the supervision of Ikeda).

Since then, glutamic acid salts have been known as the dietary supplement E621, or MSG (for monosodium glutamate), and are used primarily as "flavor and aroma enhancers". In Japan and other Asian countries, monosodium glutamate is used to give food that very “umami” taste, but in Western countries, including Russia, the additive, unfortunately, does not have the best reputation.

Let's imagine a typical trip to the store. Customers are presented with two jars of blueberry yoghurt from two different manufacturers. The first buyer will ask the price and take a jar with a smaller price tag. The second buyer will pay attention to the description of the product on the label: his choice will be determined by the words "natural", "bifidobacteria" and "contains natural berries" - even if such yogurt will be a little more expensive. The third buyer, the most scrupulous and demanding, will turn to the composition, checking it for "naturalness". It is difficult to understand what exactly “naturalness” means in this case, but most people are looking for “E-shki” in the composition of the product - food additives used in the production of yoghurt, the names of which consist of the letter E and several numbers. It is generally believed that the fewer there are, the more natural the product is.

In a simplified sense, the third customer will be right to choose yogurt with the least amount of food additives. In fact, modern food production rarely does without the use of additional funds. This, however, does not mean at all that all products are "stuffed with chemistry" and that in order to rid the body of diseases and ailments, you need to move to a village.

For example, most food additives of the first category (dyes) are synthesized from natural ingredients - for example, yellow-orange dyes E100, curcumin, obtained from turmeric.

The monosodium glutamate code is six and belongs to the group of flavor and aroma enhancers. Therefore, trust in it is even less than in dyes: the average consumer does not always understand why it is necessary to “enhance the taste” and why sacrifice the pristine naturalness of the product for this. The distrust of monosodium glutamate is supplemented by the fact that it is customary for the minds to rank among the main tastes, mainly in Asian countries or in the developed countries of Europe and America. In Russia, only a few have heard about him. In addition, monosodium glutamate is very often found in the seasoning that comes with instant noodles (most likely due to Japanese traditions) and numerous snacks like chips and crackers, which are not considered healthy at all.

In fact, if you completely exclude from your diet foods that are labeled E621, go to a remote village and eat vegetables from the garden and milk from under a cow, you will still not be able to get rid of glutamic acid in the body.

Moreover, it is impossible in principle. Firstly, glutamic acid (and from it, as we remember, monosodium glutamate is obtained) is one of the twenty amino acids that make up proteins. This means that it is contained not only in protein foods (both of animal and plant origin), but also independently synthesized by the body. Endogenous glutamic acid is one of the excitatory neurotransmitters that activate numerous receptors in the vertebrate nervous system, including, for example, NMDA receptors, whose dysfunction is associated with the development of many mental diseases and disorders, including clinical depression and schizophrenia.

Glutamic acid, obtained from natural ingredients, is broken down by the body in the same way as artificially added acid. Moreover, this is the same substance, just in the form of a salt - for better dissolution.

The only difference is that due to the presence of sodium ions, a little salty taste is added to the umami's taste.

Glutamic acid is a nonessential acid: in addition to being synthesized by the body on its own, its excess in the body is destroyed.

As for the excess of monosodium glutamate, it does not exist in principle: for example, the Codex Alimentarius (code of international food standards) does not indicate the recommended dose of the substance (unlike, by the way, salt and sugar). Of course, MSG has a lethal dose: experiments on rats have shown Substance Name: Monosodium glutamate that a half-lethal dose of glutamate is about 16 grams per kilogram of body weight. It is easy to calculate that for a person weighing 70 kilograms, a similar dose is more than a kilogram of pure monosodium glutamate. In other words, to die from an overdose of glutamate, a person will need to eat about two tons of chips in one sitting: you will most likely die from greed faster than from an excess of "dangerous" substances.

That is why it is inappropriate to criticize a certain food precisely because of the presence of monosodium glutamate in it, considering it the root of all troubles. You can just as well criticize, for example, other sources of the notorious substance: chicken, spinach, tomatoes, sardines and your own body. Eating chips and instant noodles is still not recommended - but rather because of the imbalance of nutrients, and not because of their umami taste.