I see a lot of articles that defend MSG by saying that it occurs naturally in umami foods and that things like hydrolyzed proteins and yeast extract are just MSG.
Is it possible that while MSG is safe, the overzealous arguments aren’t completely true?
I thought what occurs naturally and what hydrolyzed protein and yeast extract actually is is glutamic acid, while MSG is monosodium glutamate which is the sodium salt of the acid so they technically aren’t the same.
In: Chemistry
Ionic bonds are extremely soluable in water. For example table salt is a sodium chloride crystal. The sodium and chloride are held together with ionic bonds. But when you put salt in water it dissolves and there is no longer any ionic bonds. It is just free floating sodium ions and chloride ions in the water. There are other ions as well such as hydric ions and hydrate ions which both form naturally in water. All these ions is just flowing freely throughout the solution without any connections between them.
Glutamate and other amino acids are ions as well. To stabelize them in a dry environment we need to combine it with ions of opposite polarity. Cheapest of which is sodium. You could use hydrogen ions but this would make it very acidic because as soon as those hydrogen ions dissolves in water they form acid which easily bonds with other chemicals causing lots of reactions. So to prevent this we use sodium. But as soon as we mix it with water it does not matter what it is because the ionic bonds are gone.
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