How does MSG enhance the flavor of whatever it is added to?
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You were probably taught in school that you can taste four things: sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. And that all other components of flavor are really just smell.
This turns out not to be true.
You do have receptors on your tongue for those four things, but it turns out you have more. The first one conclusively discovered was a fifth taste called *umami* (from Japanese *uma(i)* “delicious, tasty” + *mi* “flavor”), discovered by a Japanese researcher in the early 1900s. Umami is a “meaty” or “savory” taste generated by a particular class of chemicals called glutamates; it’s responsible for the savory rich taste of meat, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheeses, soy sauce, fish sauce, etc (and by extension, things like soup whose flavor comes from those things).
MSG is both a sodium salt (so it tastes salty) and a source of glutamate (so it tastes “umami-y”). Both salty and umami flavors are pleasant to most people, so it makes most things taste better.
Since then, it’s been discovered that you have some other receptors, like one for fat content, but there’s not a common word for that flavor yet.
You have specific receptors on your taste buds that send signals to your brain via things like g protein coupled receptors. There are a bunch of different receptors for different things in cells, and on your taste cells there are receptors specifically for glutamate (MSG is monosodium glutamate). These receptors will activate when in contact with glutamate and will release a more signals to other receptors that release the pleasure chemicals like serotonin before the signal for the taste is even sent to your brain. Basically, you get more satisfaction out of eating MSG.
Anyone feel free to correct me, I’m still in my undergrad but after reading a little bit of an NCBI article I think that’s an easy way of understanding it.
MSG is a purified version (like salt) of one of five essential flavors, umami. Umami is also present in many foods naturally like certain fish, onions, and garlic. It has the effect of “rounding out” flavors of recipes that don’t have ingredients with natural sources of umami, similar to what salt and sugar do.
There’s nothing magical about MSG, it doesn’t enhance what’s already there in any unique way. It’s just a rly good seasoning/additive.
Now, there’s a lot of chemistry and science explaining why it tastes good, and what it pairs with, etc. But that is true of any flavor agent, like table salt.
The most important thing working here is umami from the glutamate. Next time you are making soup, try adding a few bay leaves. They are amazing in bringing umami to a soup or broth!
Meaty things taste savory.
Meaty things have protein.
Protein is too complicated of a molecule for your tongue to taste, but it can taste a part of the structure of the protein.
That structure is an amino acid called Glutamate.
MSG is a molecule containing Glutamate.
MSG tastes savory.
Boom
It turns **up** the flavor receptors on your tongue. If five units of flavor hit your tongue, with MSG it tells your brain that it’s really seven units of flavor. Most anytime I’m eating something and i’m just bowled over how good it is, turns out it almost always has MSG in it, but i’m here in northern thailand and it’s something that it often added. there are no free lunches in nature. mess around with it and there’s always a price to pay. with MSG it’s often a headache or worse.
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