With a taste of umami: 9 myths about monosodium glutamate
Many products that everyone fears are completely safe. - Take the same sandwiches. But many still believe that any store food is crammed with multi-storey "chemistry" and is unsafe for health. Afraid and accepted one of the most popular additives - monosodium glutamate, which is present in a huge number of products. Every year, more than two million tons of monosodium glutamate are used in food production, that is, we have eaten, eaten and most likely will eat it.
Regular publications report that it causes a variety of diseases and leads to pathological dependence on food. We are even talking about bills that will oblige manufacturers to place a warning on the content of glutamate in large print in packages, and sellers to keep such products on a separate shelf. Although the first concerns about monosodium glutamate appeared in Asian countries, today it is there that food supplement is consumed fearlessly, and in Europe it is still overgrown with legends. We chose the nine most famous and sorted out each of them.
Glutamate - artificially created substance
Glutamic acid (which in duet with sodium turns into monosodium glutamate) is part of the protein, and we need protein, as we all remember from school. This amino acid is not only naturally found in any protein food - in meat, nuts, milk, as well as in a number of vegetables - but also synthesized in ourselves and plays an important role in the metabolism and functioning of the nervous system. During the day we eat about 12 grams of glutamic acid. Artificial glutamate is obtained from bacteria, and then combined with sodium salts - other variants of compounds are possible (with calcium or, for example, potassium), but with sodium it turns out to be tastier and cheaper.
The glutamate that is synthesized in laboratories, and then added to food, is practically no different from natural - for our body, these are just two sets of the same molecules. If you do not go into the subtleties of chirality(rotation of molecules in space. - Approx. Ed.),it can be said that artificial glutamate differs from natural by 0.5%, that is, quite a bit. Natural glutamate may not be felt to the taste, if it is present only in the form of an amino acid in the composition of the protein - in this case it is in a bound form. When frying or boiling, the protein disintegrates, and then glutamate is released, giving the food a special taste. They are rich, for example, fried meat, and initially it is found in free form in tomatoes or in soybeans - that is why tomato paste and soy sauce are so tasty.
So E621 is not a crazy cocktail of multi-storey chemistry, but rather a simple additive in the form of a white powder with the taste of a freshly mixed mixture of tomato and soy sauces with a very light smell of salt and iodine (we tried). Given that she does not have any special properties, except for a unique taste, it is unlikely that she can simply disguise the tasteless or spoiled food. Glutamate is indeed often added, including taste creation, to cheap foods like chips, and such food can be unhealthy - but not because of the additive.
It is a tasteless powder that enhances the taste of any food.
Physiologists distinguish five basic tastes that are recognized by the receptors of our language and which make up all the other flavors. These basic tastes include sweet, salty, sour, bitter - and the taste of glutamic acid, which is also called "umami." Recently, scientists have started talking about the sixth type of taste buds - they are sensitive to fat. We feel the pungent taste only because of certain substances that affect the pain receptors of the tongue, and the feeling of astringent or astringent taste appears under the influence of tannins.
The person who introduced glutamate to the food industry, Kikunae Ikeda, wrote: "A careful taster will find something in common between the flavors of tomato, cheese and meat. A subtle, peculiar taste that cannot be attributed to any of the existing taste categories. It is rather weak and is eclipsed by others, more powerful, and therefore recognize it is not so easy. " However, today it is very recognizable - thanks to the notorious additive E621, that is, sodium glutamate. Contrary to the narrow-minded opinion, it does not improve absolutely any food, but is used only in those products in which glutamate was originally, or participates in the creation of certain meat or vegetable flavors, for example, for instant soups or chips. That is, as an amplifier, this additive is used to emphasize the taste of glutamate where it already exists. Sometimes this is done to compensate - for example, when washing, soaking, or thawing meat and some vegetables, some of the natural glutamic acid (and therefore taste) is lost.
The more glutamate, the tastier
Sodium glutamate in the product is put exactly as much as necessary to make it tasty, and to overdo it is the same as oversalt or redistribute. As a taste enhancer, its amount is limited by law to ten grams per kilogram of product, that is, 1%, but less is usually required to achieve the desired taste. For example, in one of the highest glutamate content products - chips - about 0.5% is used. The WHO Joint Committee of Experts on Food Additives decided that the maximum daily intake of sodium glutamate was not necessary, considering it to be non-toxic. At the same time, from 5-12 grams of glutamate eaten daily by us to artificially added, there is usually less than 1 gram.
It is not necessary to use overdoses of glutamate because there are substances that enhance its taste, that is, “amplifier amps”. It is inosinate and guanylate, and they are used when you want to make this taste even brighter. By acting on the glutamate receptors of the tongue, they enhance the taste of the minds. These compounds are fermented from glucose or obtained from meat, fish or algae, and they are also used in low doses (0.5 grams per kilogram of the product). Information about these and other flavor enhancers and how they are indicated in the composition of products is contained in the National Standard of the Russian Federation for Food Additives.
Food containing monosodium glutamate is addictive.
Food addiction is too multifaceted a problem to blame everything on glutamate, and attachment to a particular taste is determined by genetic, psychological, and other factors. The amplifier only makes the food tastier, which explains the increased interest in it. There is a version that, since it is the taste of glutamate that serves our body as a sign of protein food, people who lack protein are especially attached to it.
A group of American researchers conducted a small experiment, according to the results of which it turned out that the use of glutamate-containing products accelerates the feeling of fullness. In the course of the experiment, one group of people was offered a completely ordinary soup, which did not contain any additives, while mono-glutamate was added to the same group to the same group. After that, the subjects received the same for all the second course. The participants in the experiment from the group that first received the soup with monosodium glutamate, ate less and noted a greater sense of satiety.
Glutamate Oversteps the Nervous System
Glutamic acid, in fact, serves, among other things, as a neurotransmitter: it is produced in the brain and helps to conduct nerve impulses from one nerve cell to another. There are different types of neurotransmitters: for example, the well-known dopamine has a disturbing ability, and glycine - on the contrary, inhibits. Glutamate is involved in the processes of arousal, and it also supports the work of our short-term and long-term memory. Probably, because of this, there was talk that the absorption of a neurotransmitter should affect the functioning of the nervous system.
But here it is important to understand that glutamate, obtained with food, is used in the lumen of the intestine, almost not entering the blood, and from the blood almost never entering the brain. For this you need to thank the blood-brain barrier - a system that "filters" the penetration of chemicals from the blood into the brain. Although there are harmful substances that easily pass through this "control", like nicotine, glutamate is not one of them. If you still eat it very much, then in a small amount it will be able to penetrate into the brain and cause a slight excitement, comparable to the effect of a cup of coffee. In the light of this statement that because of the exciting effect of glutamate on the nervous system of food, one wants more and more with it, it seems far-fetched.
Glutamate causes allergies
Talk about some allergic-like symptoms allegedly caused by monosodium glutamate began when a letter was published in 1968 by Dr. Ho Ho Man Kwok, MD, who described numbness in the back of the neck, weakness and tachycardia. the restaurant. Ho Man Kwok suggested that salt, wine or monosodium glutamate might be to blame. The key word here is “suggested” - he didn’t do further research. All of them quickly forgot about salt and wine, completely writing off the syndrome of a Chinese restaurant to the long-suffering supplement.
In the course of further experiments, scientists came to the conclusion that similar symptoms can actually occur when using glutamate, but only in very large doses (more than 5-10 grams at a time), and then in pure form. In the study group, after taking five grams of the powder, more participants complained about some unusual symptoms than in the control group that received a placebo. True, these results seem dubious: the participants of both groups gave rather contradictory answers about their symptoms and even got confused in them. When the same five grams of glutamate was added to food, no one felt anything.
Glutamate causes blindness, obesity and cancer
It all started with a study in which rats were given shock doses of this substance subcutaneously - and in terms of their energy value, glutamate occupied about 20% of their diet. After that, the rodents became fat two and a half times and went blind. However, this study was later criticized more than once. In particular, they talked about the need to distinguish where the supplement goes - immediately into the blood or into the digestive tract. All points above the "i" put a series of experiments in which animals were fed pure glutamate and given as part of food. With food, rats were given the same critical doses of 20 percent of the diet, but this time it did not lead to any obesity. And to blindness too.
Long-term observations were also carried out on people who use glutamate as part of food, but it is difficult to obtain unambiguous results in such studies, since a person’s lifestyle plays a significant role in the results. If a person overeats and does not like to move, then the risk of gaining excess weight without glutamate - and vice versa, even with a significant use of this supplement, active people remain in shape. Finally, there are no published studies that prove the relationship of glutamate, obtained in the form of nutritional supplements, with the development of malignant tumors.
Glutamate causes autism
This “fact” gained fame after a biochemist from America allegedly cured her daughter of autism by ceasing to give her glutamate-containing products. What really influenced the girl's recovery and whether she really had this diagnosis is now difficult to say. The causes of autism and its prevention is a complex and ambiguous topic. For people with autism, there is a characteristic picture of an imbalance of amino acids, when the level of some is lowered, while others are elevated. Among the latter, there is enlarged glutamate, but there are no confirmed data that would indicate that this is the cause, not the effect. In any case, we are talking about glutamate as a neurotransmitter, and not a food additive, which, as mentioned above, penetrates the brain extremely rarely and in extremely small quantities.
Fears that MSG eaten during pregnancy (another name for sodium glutamate) will accumulate in the baby’s blood also apply to myths: glutamate does not penetrate the placenta. Even if you eat chips with buckets, a very small amount of this substance can penetrate the fetal blood.
Glutamate - an additional source of sodium
In discussions about the harm of glutamate, there is a version that glutamic acid itself is not so much harmful as the next portion of sodium, which we already consume quite a lot in the form of regular salt. But for those who do not suffer from kidney diseases, there is nothing to fear: sodium makes up about 13% of the mass of the supplement. If we consider that per day we eat on average within one gram - that is quite a bit. Thus, there is no data confirming the "food" danger of monosodium glutamate, especially if you consume food containing it in reasonable quantities.
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