1In today's lecture, I'm going to talk about Monosodium Glutamate,
2or MSG, as it's more commonly known.
3Now, MSG as you probably know, is a flavour enhancer
4which is used particularly in Chinese and Japanese cooking.
5Today, I am going to explore why it is so popular in these cuisines
6and, more importantly, how does it enhance the flavour of food?
7The main reason why MSG is more commonly used in Japanese meals is tradition.
8For many thousands of years,
9the Japanese have incorporated a type of seaweed known as kombu in their cooking,
10as they discovered it had the ability to make food taste better.
11But it wasn't until 1908
12that the ingredient in kombu, which was responsible for the improvement in flavour,
13was actually discovered to be glutamate by scientists working there.
14From 1908 until 1956,
15glutamate was produced commercially in Japan
16by a very slow and expensive means of extraction.
17It was in 1956 that the speed of the process was improved,
18and industrial production increased dramatically
19and still continues to increase to this day.
20In fact, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of MSG are produced all over the world today.
21So what exactly is MSG?
22Well, Monosodium Glutamate contains 78.2% glutamate,
2312.2% sodium
24and 9.6% water.
25Glutamate is an amino acid that can be found naturally in all protein-containing foods,
26erm, so this includes food such as meat and cheese.
27It is widely known that Chinese and Japanese food contains MSG
28but many people don't seem to be aware that it is also used in foods in other parts of the world.
29For example, it is found in commercially made Italian pizzas,
30in American fast food and in Britain, MSG is used in things like potato crisps.
31So, how exactly does MSG work?
32Well, in the Western world, we commonly talk of four 'tastes',
33and I'm sure you're all familiar with the concepts of sweet, sour, bitter and salt.
34Well, in 1908, Kikunae Ikeda identified a fifth 'taste'.
35And it is thought that MSG intensifies this naturally occurring 'taste' in some food.
36It does make perfect evolutionary sense that we should have the ability to detect or taste glutamate
37because it is the amino acid which is most common in natural foods.
38John Prescott, an associate professor at the University of Chicago,
39suggests that this fifth taste serves a purpose just as the other tastes do.
40He suggests that it signals to us the presence of protein in food,
41in the same way that sweetness indicates that a food contains energy-giving carbohydrates.
42Bitterness, he says, alerts us to toxins in the food,
43while sourness warns us of spoilage
44and saltiness signals the presence of minerals.
45So, what else do we know about...