Artificial glutamate where it is. What is monosodium glutamate - is it harmful or not, its effect on the human body. What you need to know about monosodium glutamate

“Monosodium glutamate is a salt of glutamic acid, one of the amino acids from which proteins are built. It is present in any protein, without exception; without it, protein does not exist in principle. Moreover, it is perhaps the most common among all twenty amino acids. In some plant proteins its amount can reach 20–40 percent. It performs a huge number of functions in the body; we can say that the body, in principle, cannot live without it. But, fortunately, this is a replaceable amino acid: that is, if there is not enough of it in food, then the body calmly synthesizes it, and if there is an excess in food, it calmly utilizes it. It is impossible to give up food with glutamic acid - then you will have to completely give up protein.

The whole noisy story with glutamate arose due to the fact that glutamic acid, in addition to having important biological functions, also has an umami taste. This is one of the five basic tastes, for which there are taste buds on the tongue. Glutamate molecules are the carriers of this taste, just like table salt, sodium chloride (more precisely, sodium ions in it) are the carriers of salty taste, acids in the form of hydrogen ions are carriers of sour taste, sugar - sweet, and many alkaloids - bitter taste.

This is how it happened in the process of evolution: glutamic acid is, one might say, a protein marker. If there is protein in food, there is usually a certain amount of this amino acid, respectively, umami recognition is the way the body finds protein-rich food. That is why this taste is pleasant to us, which is what the food industry uses.

But not only industry: most culinary processing methods are actually the production of glutamate from protein: stewing, frying, boiling. Protein, in the presence of acid under the influence of high temperature or under the action of enzymes contained in food or introduced by microorganisms, interacts with water. This reaction is essentially similar to what happens to protein in the digestive tract, and inevitably leads to the breakdown of its long molecule into separate fragments or even individual amino acids. They - and above all glutamic acid - are what give food a pleasant taste.

If we talk about fermentation, then this is the production of glutamate: soy sauces, fish sauces, cheeses, especially hard ones. Sometimes a natural source of glutamate is also used, for example if we are talking about ketchup. It's actually glutamate from tomatoes, which is why it tastes so good. Cooks discovered the taste of umami by chance, by taste, and chemistry realized these intuitive discoveries in the form of a substance that can be added to foods.”

Why is glutamic acid important and its salt used?

“A person is essentially a solution, and all reactions within us take place in solutions. And so, it doesn't really matter whether we consume MSG, MSG, MSG, or pure glutamic acid. The industry uses sodium salt because it is technically easier to purify by crystallization.

Glutamic acid is a tribasic acid, present in solution as a mixture of four forms, and depending on the pH, one or two of them will predominate. And whether we ate it in the form of salt or pure acid does not affect the ratio of these forms. In an environment close to neutral in the solution, the negatively charged glutamate anion predominates - it is this anion that has the umami taste and is involved in biochemical processes in our body.

We need to talk about glutamic acid when we talk about the chemical sequence of proteins. If we are talking about a pure substance in solution, in food, in the synapses of the brain or in the blood, then it is more logical and fair to use the word “glutamate”. Because, I repeat, glutamic acid as such does not exist in solution.”

Why is monosodium glutamate used, and not monopotassium glutamate or glutamates of other elements?

“Again, because it’s easier. It was the first glutamate to be isolated, and the first production process and purification system were also developed for it. Plus the price affects: sodium salt is the most affordable. “In addition, the umami taste of monosodium glutamate is most pronounced - compared to monopotassium glutamate, for example.”

How was MSG discovered and its connection to the umami taste?

“At the beginning of the last century, Japanese chemist professor Kikunae Ikeda set himself a goal: to determine what kind of substance in kombu seaweed makes dishes to which this seaweed is added so tasty. Glutamic acid, by the way, was already known and characterized. But Ikeda, having isolated monosodium glutamate from kombu in 1908, established a direct connection: it is this salt that is responsible for the taste effect. He received a patent and set up production: Ikeda obtained glutamate by hydrolysis of soy and wheat proteins.”

How is monosodium glutamate now produced industrially?

“Previously, artificial synthesis methods were used, but they didn’t really catch on because they were quite complicated. We must understand that glutamic acid can exist in the form of two isomers, but only one has taste, and if we do direct chemical synthesis, we get both isomers; they had to be separated, which is difficult. And the synthesis itself was quite dirty. In the 1960s and 1970s, they came up with the perfect solution: they found a bacterium that had the ability to synthesize glutamate. We carried out some selection work and launched modern production. Now these bacteria are fed molasses, a by-product of sugar production, the mixture is saturated with ammonia as a source of nitrogen, and the bacteria secrete glutamate, which is then obtained in the form of salt. So formally, from the point of view of technical regulations - and they classify substances into natural and unnatural - glutamate is a natural substance, since it is obtained by fermentation.”

Does natural glutamate found in various foods taste any different from artificially produced glutamate?

"Of course not. The properties of a substance do not depend on its origin. The first person to prove otherwise will be able to undo all chemical science of the last 200 years. And in general, the division into natural and unnatural is artificial and invented by man. Everything in the world is natural. It is important which atoms are located in what sequence in the molecule - glutamate synthesized chemically, obtained using biotechnology, or isolated from meat does not differ. It's the same glutamate."

Which foods contain the most glutamate?

“It is found in all foods that contain protein. Glutamate comes in two forms in foods. The first is chemically related: it is glutamic acid, which is part of the protein, because protein is a sequence of amino acids. The protein will definitely break down in the stomach or intestines, and the amino acid will enter the blood, but in this form it does not affect the taste.

In the second case, it is present in free form and then has a pronounced umami taste. Such glutamate can be formed during the fermentation process - these are various Asian sauces, including soy and fish, as well as aged cheeses, for example, Parmesan. Natural foods that are rich in free glutamate are mushrooms, meat, tomatoes. Tomatoes are generally an exceptional case: other berries and vegetables are not very rich in free glutamate. So it’s no coincidence that ketchup has become so firmly entrenched in culinary culture.”

How does glutamate participate in metabolism?

"Differently. Literally, the intestinal cells use it as an energy source, they burn it for their own purposes, and that’s it. Metabolism of 90-95 percent of glutamate ends in the intestinal cells, they use it as an energy source, and virtually none of it enters the blood.

But the key importance of glutamate for humans is that it is a neurotransmitter: about 60 percent of nerve impulses are transmitted with its help. In this regard, there are many different stories about how glutamate from food can cause nervous diseases. It should be noted that in this case, any glutamate could cause them - not only from food flavored with soy sauce or from a product to which crystalline glutamate has been added, but also from ordinary meat. Or cottage cheese: it is believed that low-fat cottage cheese is a healthy protein product; but cottage cheese contains 8 times more glutamate than chips, for example. In cottage cheese it is bound and has no taste, but in any case it enters the body and participates in metabolism.

But glutamate does not cause nerve diseases for two simple reasons. Firstly, the body itself is able to synthesize glutamate if there is not enough of it, and destroys it if there is too much. Secondly, between the circulatory and central nervous systems there is a blood-brain barrier, which allows necessary substances to pass through, protecting against unnecessary ones. Glutamate cannot pass this barrier and does not enter the brain. This is also an invention of evolution: I repeat, there is a ton of glutamate in human food. And it has always been this way - from the time when we were small single-celled bacteria, until we became such large and not always smart creatures.

And in general, the concentration of glutamate in the brain is a hundred times higher than in the blood, so even the idea of ​​oversaturating the brain with glutamate from food seems implausible. All glutamate, which is used by the nervous system, is synthesized and destroyed at the site of use.”

When MSG is added to various foods, does it form any chemical bonds?

“No, he just dissolves in the general mass.”

Why is artificially synthesized monosodium glutamate added to food?

“To make it tastier - for the same reason that salt and sugar are added to it. (By the way, despite the fact that the harm of excess salt and sugar is a proven fact, and excess glutamate does not affect health, for some reason everyone points the finger at glutamate.)

Let's take sausage as an example. If it is made from good meat, especially aged, fermented meat, it will certainly be tasty without any added glutamate. But these are some old Soviet legends that sausage should be healthy: no, it was not and will not be healthy, it is a cheap mass product. It was not initially assumed that it would be made from good meat. It can be made with the addition of pork skin emulsion, it can be made from pork skin extract, blood serum protein, soy isolate, and other ingredients. To the ear it sounds terrible and unpleasant. But from a health point of view there is nothing wrong with this. The problem is that all these things do not have outstanding taste due to the lack of “natural” free glutamate (there is still a lot of it in its bound form), so it is added to give the sausage the taste of meat.”

Is MSG added to food safe? Is it safe to overdose on MSG?

“Thanks to numerous studies, we know much more about the fate of glutamate in the body than about the fate in the body of carrots. Table salt, for example, has a lethal dose of about 3 g per 1 kg of weight, that is, a person who weighs 70 kg needs to eat 210 g of salt at a time. For glutamate, this figure is 16 g per 1 kg of weight. (In both the case of table salt and glutamate, these doses were calculated using experiments on rodents that were force-fed into the esophagus and fed the corresponding substances. Yes, unfortunately, science is not always good.)

That is, in order for a person to die, he needs to eat more than a kilogram of glutamate at once. This is physically impossible. Its content in products - when it is added artificially - is a maximum of 0.5%, so that an overdose is not possible for technical reasons. By the way, if for some food additives permissible daily intake standards are established, then for glutamate according to the Codex Alimentarius (an international set of food standards. - Note ed.) this indicator simply does not exist. It is physically impossible to eat enough of it to harm yourself.

They say that products in factories are often over-saturated. But here it is important to know that glutamate has a certain optimum taste: it is 0.1-0.3 percent by weight of food for liquid products and broths, in dry products it is more, up to 0.5-1%. If there is less, the food will be less tasty; if more, it’s also not good. It's like table salt: there is an optimal amount, and then it tastes good, but if you add twice as much salt, it will be much worse than without salt at all. Over-soaking food is a waste of money. And let me remind you that this conditional optimum - a conditional 0.3 percent - is several times less than the amount of glutamate in cottage cheese.”

Why is monosodium glutamate called a flavor enhancer?

“This is simply an incorrect translation. In English, this term sounds like flavor enhancer - and literally it is “taste improver, enricher.” The only taste that glutamate can enhance is the umami taste. Just as salt enhances the salty taste, and sugar enhances the sweet.”

Monosodium glutamate - poison or a common food additive? Is it really addictive, similar to drug addiction? Or is he useful, and all the rumors are an exaggeration? And how does monosodium glutamate affect the human body? Read about this in the documentary investigation of the Moscow Trust TV channel.

Is glutamate a poison?

Each of us wants to eat natural, fresh and healthy products, but finding such ideal food on the shelves is becoming more and more difficult every year.

“Currently, manufacturers are very often forced to use raw materials of insufficient quality. These raw materials may also lose some of their properties during technical processing,” says Olga Manrentseva, a senior researcher at the Research Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Doctor of Biological Sciences.

In pursuit of profit, manufacturers often improve their products in chemical laboratories.

“What does a monopoly do? It instantly kills everything good about you. The goal is to make it as cheap as possible and as tasty as possible. And here various flavors and flavor enhancers are used in order to make the product brighter,” says nutritionist Alexey Kovalkov .

Among the numerous food additives, one substance attracts special attention, which can make even the most low-quality raw materials appetizing and attractive.

“There are very serious studies that when adding monosodium glutamate to foods, our consumption increases, that is, we are hungry, we eat more foods than under normal conditions,” explains the rector of the Moscow State University of Food Production, Doctor of Biological Sciences Dmitry Edelev.

Some researchers are sure that there is an addiction to monosodium glutamate. And children are the first to suffer from this addiction.

“Children feel monosodium glutamate, apparently, more actively than we do: the taste is brighter, the taste is more interesting - especially for children. It is our children who are the first to fall under this influence,” says Dmitry Edelev.

Other scientists believe that the danger of monosodium glutamate is significantly exaggerated, because this substance is just a food additive, the safety of which has been tested many times.

“To say that this will somehow affect human health also makes absolutely no sense, since monosodium glutamate, among all possible food additives, is perhaps the most harmless,” says chemist-technologist Sergei Belkov.

The modern consumer has the right to an informed choice. Do we always have enough information so as not to make a mistake and harm our own health? To find out, you need to understand what monosodium glutamate is.

Many factors threaten the existence of humanity: poor ecology, overpopulation, the risk of global famine or warming. Recently, another item has been added to this list: the problem of food safety.

“The main task of any manufacturer, starting from the producer of meat, sausage, potatoes, chips, is for you to buy it once, try it - and then buy a second, third, fourth. It is desirable that you get hooked on it, as they say, so that it becomes accepted to your permanent assortment,” says Alexey Kovalkov.

And here various flavor enhancers come into play. People used to say: “Probably some kind of drug is added there, because after trying it once, I can never give it up.”

Of course, there are no drugs in the food that we bring home from stores, but substances obtained in the laboratory that are addictive and force the consumer to buy more and more food are not a myth at all.

"Meat Taste"

Everyone has heard about the dangers of food additives, stabilizers and preservatives. A few years ago, the tabloid press started talking about another horror story that is so easy to mislead an inexperienced audience - monosodium glutamate. The media warned that this insidious ingredient could end up in any product purchased.

"We believe that the hype around monosodium glutamate is not justified, because this food additive is approved for use in the food industry. Very extensive studies have been carried out, all the necessary ones, mutagenic activity, carcinogenic, no adverse effects on the human body, this food additive has been tested “I didn’t,” says Olga Manrentseva.

Despite the assurances of experts, a wary attitude towards glutamate remains. And, as it turned out, not without reason. But in order to understand how dangerous this substance really is, you need to figure out when exactly our civilization encountered it.

"In 1907 in Japan, a group of scientists synthesized a powder. In its structure it resembled salt, in color - salt, in taste - between salt and sugar, such an intermediate taste. In 1909 it was officially published - this is the moment that we We consider it the beginning of the march of monosodium glutamate around the world,” says Dmitry Edelev.

Ikeda Kikunae

The new substance was synthesized by University of Tokyo chemist Ikeda Kikunae, who found that the resulting glutamic acid salt can be used as a food additive - a flavor enhancer. Monosodium glutamate instantly gained popularity, first in Japan and then throughout the world. Today, its annual consumption by humanity reaches 200 thousand tons.

Monosodium glutamate was obtained in the laboratory at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it turns out that long before its discovery, humanity was familiar with this substance.

"Humanity has been faced with monosodium glutamate, I think, since its inception, because glutamate is one of the components of food. Where there is protein, there is glutamic acid everywhere. This is one of the 20 amino acids that are part of proteins. Therefore, humanity is associated with have been with us for a very long time,” says the head of the Department of Pharmacology at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, Doctor of Medical Sciences Oleg Medvedev.

It is glutamic acid salts, including monosodium glutamate, that give Japanese cuisine such a bright, immediately recognizable taste. After all, most of it is contained in precisely those products that Japanese chefs use.

“This is soybean paste, so-called miso paste, this is soy sauce, that is, a traditional Japanese dressing sauce, it is used in almost all dishes. This is a natural soy ingredient, that is, soy protein, as we know, is also very useful for the human body.” , says the chef of the Japanese restaurant Victor Hen.

Our tongue perceives four classic tastes: sour, bitter, sweet and salty. The surface of the tongue is divided into several zones, the receptors of each of which perceive a specific taste. But monosodium glutamate is absorbed by the entire surface of the human tongue. If four habitual tastes are justified from an evolutionary point of view, then why should we perceive a fifth?

"This is a specialized receptor, we don’t quite understand why it is needed. Well, for example: we have a receptor for sweets, this is a genetically determined receptor that spoke about the ripeness of certain products; we have a receptor for sour things, which spoke on the contrary about the immaturity of these products; we have a receptor for bitterness, which also indicates the ripeness or danger of the products,” says Dmitry Edelev.

Nutritional supplement or drug?

Some scientists believe that the taste of glutamate is quite justified, it just became known to Europeans a little later than to the inhabitants of Asia.

“Since glutamic acid is an essential component of protein, in the course of evolution we have developed the ability to recognize the taste of this glutamic acid, that is, to select from the whole variety of foods those foods that are rich in protein,” says Sergei Belkov.

One way or another, monosodium glutamate is the strongest flavor enhancer. It can add the flavor of a meat dish to any product.

A simple experiment can prove this. Three volunteers were asked to eat a small portion of tofu cheese, which itself, in its pure form, has an absolutely neutral taste. The first tester tries pure tofu, without any additives. What are your impressions from the tasting?

The taste is neutral. Homogeneous mass. It's not tasty, I wouldn't eat it.

That's how it should be. After all, tofu itself has no taste.

A small amount of monosodium glutamate was added to the second portion. The taster's sensations immediately change.

This is a soft, homogeneous mass. Taste: Soy flavor. Without salt.

The minimal amount of MSG already gave the impression that the product tasted like soy. What happens if you add even more glutamate? Now there is clearly an excessive amount of it in the portion, but this dosage, of course, cannot harm the health of the volunteer. It turns out that tasteless tofu has changed its properties.

Quite a strong taste, a little bitter, a little salty, gives a rather strong soy taste, soybeans. The beans taste like soy. Maybe cheese. Probably cheese. A little bit like processed cheese, like Druzhba cheese, only very bitter, in addition.

The fact established by scientists has been confirmed: monosodium glutamate can give any product a pronounced taste. The second and third volunteers are sure: they ate something containing soy protein. However, it was the added glutamate that gave this illusion. Of course, this property opens up many prospects for food manufacturers: now it is possible to provide protein flavor even to those products where there is no trace of protein.

But are all manufacturers conscientious enough not to disguise low-quality and even harmful raw materials in this way? Not long ago, Russian legislators took the initiative to limit the use of monosodium glutamate in food production in our country.

And some scientists even believe that glutamate is a drug that is almost impossible to give up.

Scary numbers E621

Monosodium glutamate is a powerful flavoring additive that can add a meaty taste to any product. At first glance, this is a quite useful property, but on the other hand, it can mislead the consumer, deceiving his expectations regarding the quality of the product.

This is one of the reasons why, in the spring of 2013, some State Duma deputies demanded to limit the use of glutamate in the Russian Federation.

“Let’s take, for example, fresh, fresh meat, and we’ll prepare some dish from it, and we’ll take thrice-frozen overseas meat, which has become a little rotten, we’ll strengthen it with various chemicals, add various flavoring additives, and most importantly, we’ll add the flavor enhancer glutamate sodium. Having prepared the same dish from these two products, the consumer is more likely to choose not the one from the fresh meat, but the other,” says Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Yaroslav Nilov.

This is just one of the claims made against MSG. There are also more serious ones.

“In this case, when a person uses this, it seems to him that it is tasty, he, without thinking, falls into a certain hormonal state. In addition, with the constant use of products with monosodium glutamate, a certain drug addiction arises,” Nilov believes . - For example, I can say: why do children all love French fries, hamburgers, sausages, some kind of chips, crackers? There's a flavor enhancer everywhere."

Legislators require that information about the MSG content of products be indicated on the label, but this rule is not yet mandatory, and some manufacturers neglect it. Or they disguise it with codes that are often incomprehensible to the buyer. E621 – this is the designation adopted for monosodium glutamate in the food additive system.

“Unfortunately, the product labeling that is currently used in Russia is not very informative. Few components are included in the labeling. Unfortunately, they are all printed in such small print that elderly people and grandparents, coming to the store, even want to choose healthy products , they must look through a magnifying glass,” says Oleg Medvedev.

And it is really necessary to inform the consumer about the content of glutamate, because so far scientists cannot resolve all the questions that have accumulated regarding this substance. Unfortunately, some of the fears have already turned into media horror stories and have nothing to do with reality.

Without feelings

The most common concern: MSG is addictive. Without it, food does not stimulate the appetite at all and seems tasteless. The statement is logical, but how true is it?

And in fact, many of us would prefer chips or crackers, where the glutamate content is simply off the charts, to a complete and healthy lunch. And it is very difficult to give up this bad habit.

“There are very serious studies that adding monosodium glutamate to foods increases our consumption, that is, we want to eat. We eat more foods than under normal conditions,” says Dmitry Edelev. - There are very serious studies on the topic of changing taste. That is, if this substance was not found in this product, and the manufacturer adds this substance to this product for a long time, then a change in taste and addiction to this substance occurs."

This effect really exists: a person will always prefer food with a stronger taste. After all, the pleasure of taste is one of the most important pleasures available to us. Some experts even compare the degree of this pleasure to sex.

“The question is whether we need to enhance the taste. And in general, who is this for? We, people, don’t need it, because by nature we cope well with what is given to us by nature. But producers simply need it: their main task is for us to try it and like it,” says Alexey Kovalkov.

And we really like it, otherwise it is impossible to explain such popularity of fast food restaurants all over the world. After all, it is there, according to experts, that manufacturers abuse flavor enhancers.

“I’ll give you a simple example. Mom, when she came home, decided that fast food is bad, but a homemade cheeseburger would be good. She makes exactly the same cutlet, but from natural good meat, takes a good bun, bakes it herself (or buys a normal bun), adds all the same ingredients, makes mayonnaise herself, does everything herself. She makes it for the child, he says: “Mom, listen, how disgusting! That’s where we went, it’s really delicious.” She doesn’t understand and says: “But that’s normal, you see, everything is the same.” But that’s not the case,” explains Kovalkov.

There really is an addictive effect to foods whose taste is enhanced by monosodium glutamate. Fortunately, it is not so strong that it can be compared to addiction to drugs or alcohol. Researchers claim that you can get rid of this addiction within a few hours.

“Of course, any tasty food dulls the sense of taste for a while. If you drink a sweet soda, for a while the carrots will not seem very sweet to you. Just like if you eat chips that have added MSG, for some time you have the perception of this particular taste. But after some time it will return in the same way as the sweet taste returns. The sensitivity of taste buds is restored," explains Sergey Belkov.

That is, the myth that monosodium glutamate distorts our taste is only partly true. Without consuming it for some time, you can reduce addiction to a minimum and begin to enjoy the taste of natural food again.

Another and very serious complaint about glutamate is that it contains sodium, which is harmful to our body. After all, even ordinary table salt, which also contains sodium, can become a deadly poison if overdosed. According to research by physiologists, sodium is a powerful neurotransmitter that affects our nervous system and brain function.

“The biological activity of monosodium glutamate is very high. It is very similar to our brain. This neurotransmitter comes from it, it synthesizes very highly active biological substances in our body. We still do not fully understand its role in general in our complex functioning machine, which called the human body,” says Dmitry Edelev.

It's a matter of dose

Is there really so much sodium in glutamic acid derivative that it can cause problems in our body? It turns out that there is a lot, but much less than in the same table salt.

“It’s actually not difficult to calculate the sodium content of any salt; for this, all we need is the periodic system and formulas. Let’s take, for example, ordinary table salt NaCl. We take the mass from the periodic table, sodium 23, the atomic mass of chlorine – 35.5. Accordingly, the sodium content in this salt can be easily calculated - approximately 39%,” says Sergei Belkov.

We carry out the same procedure with monosodium glutamate. As a result, we get that the sodium content of monosodium glutamate is approximately 13.6%. In fact, we can say that the quantitative sodium content in glutamate is approximately three times less than in salt.

These calculations convincingly prove that an overdose of regular salt is much more dangerous than monosodium glutamate. But the results of some experiments claim that increased consumption of glutamate leads to catastrophic consequences.

Japanese scientists conducted a study on rats that were fed food with a high content of monosodium glutamate. After some time, the experimental animals began to have health problems: obesity, blindness and loss of reproductive functions: the rats stopped producing offspring.

Russian scientists agree with the conclusions of their Japanese colleagues, but there is one subtle point here.

“There was such work, from a scientific point of view, it was done quite correctly, but it all started with the researcher: he embellished the conclusions a little, and the press and media added fuel to the fire, since the main, key point of that work was that monosodium glutamate was added to rats' food in an amount of 20% of the diet. And in this amount, after some time, some harmful effects begin to occur in rats. If it was added in an amount of 5-10%, then nothing happened," says Sergei Belkov .

It turns out that it’s purely a matter of dosage: up to a certain concentration, monosodium glutamate is absolutely safe and does not pose a threat to health. Rather, on the contrary, as Japanese scientists of the early twentieth century assumed, it makes our lives better and our food tastier. Those who use this dietary supplement wisely will have access to new and vibrant flavors without any harm to health.

But how can we determine the line where benefit turns into harm? Specialists from the Nutrition Research Institute have found out what quantity makes a harmless spice poisonous.

“In the Russian Federation, just like in the European Council, the standard for adding monosodium glutamate to food products is 10 grams per kilogram. And in accordance with the technical documentation, monosodium glutamate is used in spices and herbs. In the manufacture of food products for Monosodium glutamate is not used for children under three years of age,” says Olga Manrentseva.

All products arriving on the counter undergo thorough testing in the laboratories of the Institute of Nutrition, where experts check the percentage of monosodium glutamate.

“Before our products enter the market, they must be certified for compliance with technical regulations. And if a food product does not meet the requirements of technical regulations, in this case, the requirements of the technical regulation on the safety of the use of food additives 029 of 2012, this food product cannot be placed on our market,” explains Manrentseva.

There is only one conclusion: there is no point in being afraid of this food additive, it is absolutely safe. The only question is to force the manufacturer to comply with the standards and not violate them for the sake of their own profit.

But what if you categorically decide to exclude monosodium glutamate from your diet? It turns out that such a possibility practically does not exist.

“I’ll tell you a little secret: it’s basically impossible to stop consuming glutamate, since glutamic acid is a component of any protein; in any protein, its composition ranges from 10% to 40%. Animal protein, plant protein. And the only way to stop consuming glutamate is This is to refuse to consume any protein, which is highly not recommended,” says Sergei Belkov.

It is useless to fight glutamate; it is actually found everywhere. Moreover, in some products its content is even greater than that recommended by specialists from the Institute of Nutrition. Limiting your own consumption of glutamate, the dangers of which have been discussed by scientists and the media for many years, is actually quite simple.

Pay more attention to the ingredients of the products you buy. All related information on the label can be very important and useful. After all, when it comes to food and food safety, there can be no negligence; any of them can be too expensive for our health.

Many people consider this popular food additive, if not poison, then an extremely harmful substance and try to avoid foods that contain monosodium glutamate. But did you know that this substance is formed naturally in some foods? For example, in fish, tomatoes and cheese, which many love so much for their special taste.

We tried to figure out to what extent the opinion about the dangers of monosodium glutamate corresponds to reality and whether it should be completely eliminated from use.

Origin of monosodium glutamate

Monosodium salt of glutamic acid, or simply monosodium glutamate, was first isolated artificially in 1907 by Tokyo University professor Ikeda Kikunae. This substance was obtained from kombu seaweed and was subsequently marketed under the name “ajinomoto”, which means “essence of taste”.

In China, MSG is called "flavoring", in Vietnam - "onion salt" or "sweet powder", in Europe and the USA it is known as MSG (short for Monosodium glutamate), and in Russia as food additive E621.

They tried to synthesize monosodium glutamate artificially, but these attempts failed due to the complexity of the process. The fermentation method turned out to be the most acceptable and inexpensive: a bacterium capable of producing this salt was found. Therefore, from the point of view of technical regulations, which classify substances into natural and unnatural, monosodium glutamate is a natural substance.

Why does this additive make food taste so good?

For a long time, it was believed that glutamate enhances taste by increasing the sensitivity of receptors on the tongue. But in 2002, it was discovered that the human tongue has special L-glutamate receptors that are responsible for tastes other than sour, sweet, salty and bitter - the so-called “umami”.

Umami taste is the way the human body determines that a food is rich in protein. And the marker of protein for the body is glutamic acid, and it is this (or more precisely, the carboxylate anion of glutamic acid) that we perceive as this special enveloping “meat” or “broth” taste.

Foods Naturally Containing Monosodium Glutamate

As we have already found out, monosodium glutamate is a natural substance in origin, which means it can be formed naturally in products. And, as you might guess, people find such products tasty - cheese, meat and seafood, ripe tomatoes, mushrooms, ham, celery, grapes, soy and fish sauces, as well as seaweed, which we have already mentioned.

Fun fact: Perhaps the most surprising food high in glutamic acid is breast milk, which has about as much umami flavor as meat broth. This amino acid can also be found in green tea.

Chinese restaurant syndrome

A hypothetical set of symptoms has been associated with MSG consumption, which was first described in a letter from reader Robert Ho Man Kwok to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Robert said that every time he visits Chinese restaurants in the United States, he experiences numbness in the back of his neck, which spreads to his arms and back, as well as weakness and rapid heartbeat. This condition lasts about 2 hours and then goes away without any consequences. In his letter, Kwok indicated that several of his friends also experienced similar sensations, and soon there were other people with similar problems.

Many studies, including placebo studies, have been conducted to confirm the link between these symptoms and MSG use, but no conclusive evidence has been found.

Impact on the body

And yet, can consuming foods with monosodium glutamate seriously harm our body? According to scientists, to date it has not been proven that the use of this substance in reasonable doses is in any way harmful to humans.

Experiments on rats have shown that feeding these animals with monosodium glutamate in the amount of 20% of the weight of all food consumed for 6 months can lead to visual impairment. However, it is difficult to imagine a person who would be able to eat such a huge amount of glutamate.

According to another study conducted among 752 Chinese residents, consuming monosodium glutamate increases the risk of excess weight. But later, when conducting a longer and more detailed study, these conclusions were not confirmed, and no connection was found between monosodium glutamate and asthma in adults and children.

And since we mentioned doses, it’s worth talking about the lethal dose of monosodium glutamate (by the way, every substance has such a dose, even water). For this substance it is 16 g per 1 kg of human weight. In other words, in order to get seriously poisoned, a person needs to eat about 1 kg of monosodium glutamate in one sitting. For comparison: for table salt this dose is 3 g per 1 kg of weight, or a single use of the product in the amount of 250 g.

Thus, the good old truth is confirmed: you can eat almost anything, only in moderation.

It’s no secret that in the modern world food has become entertainment. We eat to cheer ourselves up, to try new flavor combinations, and even just to occupy our free time with something. Meanwhile, the food industry contributes to this in every possible way and finds more and more new ways to irritate the taste buds of our tongue. One of the main, in the literal sense of the word, drugs that are actively flavored with modern food is the food additive E621 - monosodium glutamate. Those who have tried various unhealthy refined foods know how addictive it is and how difficult it is to give it up.

Chips, crackers, nuts, waffles, candies, ice cream, various semi-finished products, sausages, sausages, sauces, ketchups, mayonnaise - the list goes on and on. Our brain is designed in such a way that it considers only healthy food tasty - this is ideal. But the food industry has long learned to deceive the human brain. Through complex chemical transmutations, manufacturers have learned to create the illusion of taste, which deceives our brain and body. And to make unhealthy refined food - which without various flavoring additives will be rejected by our brain as tasteless and unfit for consumption - become attractive, manufacturers generously fill it with various flavor enhancers, the main one of which is monosodium glutamate.

Food additive E621: what is it?

E621 is the sodium salt of glutamic acid, easily dissolves in water and causes addiction to the body from the very first doses. The fact is that monosodium glutamate actively irritates special receptors on our tongue, allowing us to induce enhanced taste sensations. At the same time, natural, natural taste sensations become faded against this background, and a person ceases to perceive simple, natural food as tasty. That is, our brain does not react to the taste of vegetables, fruits, berries and other natural foods - it becomes fresh and tasteless to it, like grass. Instead, the brain begins to look for those strong sensations that monosodium glutamate gives it, by irritating particularly sensitive taste buds. This is how drug addiction is formed.

And this forces a person to increase the volume of consumption of junk food, and healthy, natural food in especially severe cases of addiction is completely excluded. We can see how modern youth have completely forgotten how to eat simple food: cereals, vegetables, soups, fruits, etc. The main part of their diet consists of fast food, various confectionery products, fatty, fried foods, semi-finished products and other unnatural foods. This is a clear example of how a drug like monosodium glutamate works.

German chemist Karl Heinrich Ritthausen discovered this substance in the middle of the 19th century, and Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda discovered it in a decoction of brown algae. This was precisely the beginning of the mass “addiction” of people to this food drug. In the modern world, monosodium glutamate is produced using microbiological methods - it is synthesized by the bacterium Corynebacterium glutamicum. It is this substance that is added to almost any product with a complex chemical composition. It is absent only in fresh vegetables, fruits, berries, cereals and other simple, natural products. Any other food that has undergone more serious human processing most likely contains the food additive E621, monosodium glutamate.

Food additive E621: effect on the human body

Have you ever seen such a depressing picture in a store - a child insistently demands to buy him some “delicious food” and all this is accompanied by screams, tears and hysterics? This is a vivid example of how the food additive E621 affects a child’s fragile psyche. Causing persistent addiction, it forces a person to strive again and again to experience acute taste sensations, which become less and less acute over time, forcing manufacturers to increase the amount of monosodium glutamate, and consumers to increase consumption. The example with a child is not at all evidence that this drug has any different effect on an adult.

It’s just that an adult is able to control his emotions, which, however, does not prevent him from spending half of his salary on such so-called food - quietly, without tears or hysterics. That is why the refusal of refined artificial products is associated with great volitional efforts, as well as severe depressive states after eliminating them from the diet. Therefore, before you buy this or that product that has clearly undergone some additional processing, carefully read the composition. Ideally, it is better to consume foods whose origin you can explain. For example, cereals: the product grew, it was collected, packaged, and it ended up on your table. Everything is simple and clear. Do you know how chips or candy are prepared? For most, this is a sealed secret. And eating food that is of dubious origin is not entirely wise.

Presence monosodium glutamate in foods and instant noodles - food that does not belong to the category of healthy food, invariably arouses interest in how safe this substance is and whether its use should be avoided.

A fairly popular food additive, also called a flavor enhancer, is the monosodium salt of glutamic acid, which is also present in natural products. It is found in mushrooms, milk, meat, broccoli, cheese and so on.

Many people mistake monosodium glutamate for a food chemical and try to completely remove any product that contains it from their diet. You need to understand that in its pure form it is not harmful to health.

Why does food with MSG taste better?

Monosodium salt affects fats and proteins, significantly enhancing and revealing their natural taste. By itself, it has a sweetish taste, which is characteristic of breast milk, forty percent of the protein of which contains glutamine, a substance related to glutamate.

The beloved taste of broccoli, walnuts, Roquefort and Parmesan, fish, soy sauce, mushrooms, seafood, and meat is due to the presence of monosodium glutamate. Without it they wouldn't be as tasty. The synthesized additive is completely similar to the natural substance.

Where is a flavor enhancer used?

In the food industry, this additive is actively used in the production of sausages to make the final product attractive to the buyer, that is, edible. In other words, it affects the taste, but does not make processed meat harmful.

Another food industry where glutamate is widely used is fast food. Instant noodles, chips, dry packaged soups would not be tasty without it. However, such food cannot be called useful and healthy.

How did MSG become a food additive?

To give dishes a bright and rich taste, people have been mixing some foods with others for centuries. And if European chefs used different types of cheeses and tomatoes for this purpose, then Asian chefs used different variations of soy sauce and seaweed. The secret to the taste of these products lies in the presence of monosodium glutamate.

Its chemical formula was studied by Japanese scientists in 1908, and the substance, which was previously part of natural products, began to be synthesized. Artificial glutamate became widespread after World War II, when American soldiers who captured Japanese soldiers became interested in why their food tasted so good.

Why is a flavor enhancer added to food?

Canned and dried products are stored for a long time, but lose most of their taste. In order for food to regain its natural taste, it is restored by introducing fats, spices and synthesized monosodium glutamate into the product.

The additive is usually used to restore or enhance the meat taste. Thanks to glutamate, the by-product mixture turns into delicious sausage and frankfurters, palm oil with textured soybeans turns into broth, which is present in packs of instant noodles, and chips acquire the characteristic taste of cheese.

Is a flavor enhancer dangerous?

If we talk about the dangers of monosodium glutamate, only the case of “Chinese restaurant syndrome” is justified and proven, when a person’s face becomes red and their breathing becomes rapid. Such side effects occur only when this substance is consumed in very large quantities.

There is no scientific evidence of a relationship between glutamate consumption and the development of obesity or any pathologies. Here one should take into account the fact that in the research process only the substance itself is considered, but not the composition of the product produced by the modern food industry.

Should MSG be avoided?

E-631, E-621, E-627, “flavor enhancer”, “flavoring additive” are the designations of synthesized glutamate salts. And if one of them is present on the product packaging, then its taste has been restored or enhanced.

It is necessary to understand that the substance itself does not pose any threat; it is present in the chemical composition of mushrooms, cheeses, tomatoes, and so on. Every day a person consumes 13-15 grams of glutamate. But if natural food is healthy, then industrial food is not, and, therefore, the consumption of the latter should be minimized.

Conclusion

Chemically synthesized monosodium glutamate is similar to natural one. There is no direct evidence of its harm to human health, but the products to which it is added as a result of production are high-calorie and, unfortunately, unhealthy.

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