{"id":145964,"title":"MSG or Monosodium Glutamate: What Is It? How Do You Use It?","modified":"2026-06-17T15:27:27+02:00","plain":"MSG (monosodium glutamate) is one of the most misunderstood ingredients in Europe. Part of the reason for this fear may be tied to its name: these days, many people avoid ingredients whose names sound too chemical.\n\n\n\nOf course, anything can sound scary if you use its scientific name. Sodium chloride and dihydrogen monoxide may sound alarming, but they're just the scientific names for salt and water.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMaybe MSG would be seen in a different light in our countries if it were called \"the essence of taste,\" which is what the name of the popular Japanese brand Ajinomoto translates to. It's true that it sounds impressive to say \"I'm adding a little essence of taste\" \u2014 it's like a magic spell.\n\n\n\nBut what is glutamate? This common food additive is everywhere in packaged foods and in the kitchens of many cultures, especially in Asia, yet it's relatively rare in home kitchens across Europe. \n\n\n\nIn this article, I'll explain what MSG brings to food, how it's made, how common sensitivity to this ingredient really is, and how to use it in cooking. I promise it's not as scary as it might seem.\n\n\n\nWhat is glutamate? \n\n\n\nMSG is defined as \"the sodium salt of glutamic acid, a common amino acid.\" Glutamic acid, or glutamate, is naturally present in many foods that people eat all the time. \n\n\n\nGlutamate goes into my dan dan noodles recipe\n\n\n\nAccording to the literature, an average person consumes 13 grams of naturally occurring glutamate from food every day, while glutamate intake from the use of MSG as a food additive averages just over half a gram per day.\n\n\n\nYour body processes artificial MSG in exactly the same way it processes natural glutamates. \n\n\n\nMSG comes as an odorless white crystalline powder that looks a lot like ordinary table salt. It isn't eaten on its own; rather, it's used as a seasoning agent to give a delicious, savory flavor.\n\n\n\nA 2008 study in the journal \"Physiology & Behavior\" found that adding MSG to soup made the test subjects like it more, and that participants who ate the MSG soup ate more than the subjects given a control soup without the additive. Clearly, it has an effect. \n\n\n\nHow is glutamate made? \n\n\n\nAccording to Japanese MSG manufacturer Ajinomoto, powdered glutamate was invented in 1908 by Japanese biochemist Dr. Kikunae Ikeda. He noticed that his wife's tofu and vegetable broth had a distinct meaty flavor and asked her what her secret was. \n\n\n\nShe told him the \"savory\" flavor came from \"kombu,\" a type of seaweed now known to be very rich in natural MSG. Dr. Ikeda, recognizing the potential of kombu broth, evaporated the water from it, causing the glutamic acid to crystallize. In 1909, he founded Ajinomoto and began selling powdered glutamate to the Japanese public.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThroughout history since then, MSG has been produced in various ways. Before the 1930s, glutamate was extracted from wheat gluten. After that, soy protein was used as the base instead. Finally, in the 1960s, the current production method by fermentation came into use. \n\n\n\nNowadays, glutamic acid bacteria produce glutamate by eating starch. Manufacturers add water and sodium to neutralize the glutamic acid, and this neutral mixture is then evaporated until it crystallizes into MSG. Sexy, right?\n\n\n\nGlutamate vs. Salt\n\n\n\nAlthough salt and glutamate are both sodium compounds and share some similarities, they're ultimately quite different. Salt gives food a salty taste, but it also enhances its flavor.\n\n\n\nIt can also be used as a preservative, as was common in the past (that's where most cured meats come from). Like salt, MSG is used as a flavor enhancer, but instead of adding a salty taste, it amplifies the savory character of food. This may sound abstract, but it's key to understanding how to use it.\n\n\n\nMSG contains sodium, but less than salt. Since they're both flavor enhancers, it's possible to reduce a dish's overall sodium content without diminishing its flavor by replacing some of the salt with glutamate.\n\n\n\nThat's good news for people watching their blood pressure, because too much sodium can lead to hypertension and other cardiovascular problems. So, yes: adding MSG to your diet could actually be beneficial to your health, under the right circumstances.\n\n\n\nWhat does glutamate taste like? \n\n\n\nOn its own, glutamate doesn't taste good. Overusing it in a dish will give it a rather strange flavor. However, it will improve the taste of many other foods when used correctly. The secret behind this property is umami, also known as the \"fifth taste.\" \n\n\n\nSo, in addition to salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. For example, for sweet, we have sugar; for salty, salt. But for umami, we have MSG.\n\n\n\nUmami has become a very trendy flavor lately in the West. It's hard to describe, but words like \"savory\" and \"meaty\" are more or less good descriptors of this taste sensation. In Europe, where MSG is often stigmatized, people associate umami with foods like meat, mushrooms, and soy sauce. \n\n\n\nIronically, the word \"umami\" was coined to describe the taste of MSG. According to Ajinomoto, Kikunae Ikeda decided to create a new word for the flavor of his new powdered glutamate invention. Umami is derived from the Japanese word for delicious, \"umai.\" Indeed, all the foods that people in France consider to have an umami flavor are rich in natural glutamates.\n\n\n\nThe science of glutamate and umami\n\n\n\nOkay, now you know that MSG adds umami to food, but how exactly does it work? In fact, your tongue has taste receptors designed to pick up glutamate. When savory, umami-rich foods land on your tongue, it triggers a complex relay race that ultimately makes your brain perceive flavor in the abstract sense of the word. \n\n\n\nOnce MSG binds to your taste buds, they communicate with calcium channels, which causes the glutamate receptors in your mouth to fill with calcium. This in turn triggers the release of certain neurotransmitters.\n\n\n\nThese neurotransmitters act as messengers for your nervous system, signaling your nerves to tell our brain that you're tasting something delicious. The message travels through your nerves to your brainstem, which sends it to your \"gustatory\" cortex, located higher up and farther forward in your brain. \n\n\n\nThen, at last, you perceive the flavor of the food in our mouth. That's a terriiiiibly complex set of operations for something people experience as happening instantly ! And I admit I've very likely taken some big shortcuts, but forgive me, I love you.\n\n\n\nThe nutrition of glutamate\n\n\n\nThere isn't much to say about the nutritional content of MSG. As far as nutrition labels go, the only notable nutrient it contains is sodium. A pinch of MSG contains 80 milligrams of sodium, or 3% of the recommended daily value for an average person. By comparison, table salt contains more than three times as much sodium as MSG.\n\n\n\nIt's important to note that, while reducing your sodium intake can be beneficial to your health, your body needs salt to function.\n\n\n\nLiterally, you would die without any dietary source of sodium. In fact, sodium is essential to the proper functioning of your nervous system, your muscles, and your heart, and it also helps your body regulate moisture. So, salt in moderation, yes, but never go to extremes!\n\n\n\nHow to cook with glutamate?\n\n\n\nIf you've never cooked with MSG before, it can seem a little intimidating. You'll be tapping into a whole new way of seasoning, and using it effectively will obviously take a bit of practice. That said, it's really not hard, and the flavor benefits are IMMENSE.\n\n\n\nGlutamate works best in already very savory foods that you want to take to the NEXT LEVEL. Not only does it enhance flavors, but it can also help neutralize the bitterness of certain ingredients.\n\n\n\nOf course, it's excellent in Asian dishes and anything containing soy sauce. It also makes sauces and soups much more delicious and can heighten the flavor of tomatoes. You can also take a cue from the snack industry and include it in your homemade popcorn seasoning mix.\n\n\n\nDon't use it in desserts, though; it tastes strange in sweet dishes. I'd tested it on my cookie recipe and honestly, not great.\n\n\n\nI very often add glutamate to my fried rice\n\n\n\nYou need to be careful when using MSG, because it's very potent. Half a teaspoon is often enough to season a dish for a family dinner. Also, since it's a sodium-based product, you'll likely need less salt than usual when cooking with MSG. Again, you have to test.\n\n\n\nFor Sichuan noodles with glutamate, it's an essential part of the recipe\n\n\n\nIs glutamate bad for your health?\n\n\n\nMSG's bad reputation goes back to the United States, to a letter published in the \"New England Journal of Medicine\" in 1968. In it, a reader claiming to be Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote that eating at Chinese-American restaurants gave him palpitations and numbness. \n\n\n\nHe had carried out no scientific study of these symptoms, but he hypothesized that they might be linked to overly salty foods, the heavy use of cooking wine, or MSG. The public then latched onto glutamate as the culprit, and the racist term \"Chinese Restaurant Syndrome\" was born.\n\n\n\nAlthough MSG was (and still is) commonly used in foods that everyone eats regularly, Chinese food was singled out as the scapegoat.\n\n\n\nIn the wake of this panic, several flawed studies claimed to demonstrate a link between MSG and health problems. Some studies with human participants weren't conducted blind, meaning the participants knew whether or not there was MSG in their food and were therefore susceptible to the placebo (or nocebo) effect.\n\n\n\nAnother study tried to show that baby mice injected with enormous quantities of MSG grew up with health problems. Of course, this in no way replicates the consumption of small amounts of glutamate as a seasoning.\n\n\n\nGenerally speaking, health bodies classify MSG as \"generally recognized as safe,\" and it's eaten regularly by a huge percentage of the world's population (including the French, though many don't know it). In short, there's no evidence that dietary MSG has any negative health effects.\n\n\n\nWhich prepared foods contain glutamate?\n\n\n\nWhile MSG is often associated with Asian cuisine and is indeed popular in the kitchens of that continent, it's pretty much everywhere. Given that glutamate is found in a large percentage of processed foods, you've probably eaten some very recently without even realizing it. \n\n\n\nOn labels, it can go by various names. Some of the most common are glutamic acid, yeast extract, hydrolyzed protein, casein, and the ever-mysterious \"natural flavors,\" but there are many others.\n\n\n\nWhich foods contain natural glutamate?\n\n\n\nObviously, processed foods don't have a monopoly on glutamate, and synthetic powdered MSG accounts for only a small part of the glutamates in the average person's diet. Many common ingredients are loaded with natural glutamate, which makes them great sources of umami flavor in cooking. \n\n\n\nUnsurprisingly, since it was once the main source of powdered MSG, kombu tops the list, with some varieties containing up to 3,380 milligrams of glutamate per 100 grams. Soy sauce is next on the list, with up to 1,700 milligrams. \n\n\n\nBut then again, that can count as a processed food, unless you buy REAL soy sauce. Also in the 1,000+ club are dried shiitake mushrooms, at 1,060 milligrams.\n\n\n\nItalian cuisine is also very rich in glutamate! Parmigiano-Reggiano and sun-dried tomatoes contain more than 1,000 milligrams per 100 grams. This very likely explains the popularity of these condiments.\n\n\n\n Green tea contains up to 670 milligrams, more than fresh tomatoes, ham, and certain types of miso, which are also very rich in glutamate.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcwiner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}