Why does cheese taste salty while having almost no sodium?

Question

When I eat avocado toast, I put a lot of salt on it and it really brings out a salty flavor. When I eat a cream cheese bagel, it already has that same salty flavor even though the cream cheese I used doesn’t contain almost any salt. Why is that?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Some cheeses might contain other compounds, like glutamate, that activate umami taste receptors. Umami is sometimes considered “tasty” or salty in some way.