Usage
Pure MSG does not have a pleasant taste until it is combined with a consonant savory smell. As a flavor and in the right amount, MSG can enhance other taste-active compounds, improving the overall taste of certain foods. MSG mixes well with meat, fish, poultry, many vegetables, sauces, soups, and marinades. Since MSG mixes well with many foods, it can also increase the overall preference of certain foods like beef consommé. But like other basic tastes, except sucrose, MSG improves the pleasantness only in the right concentration: an excess of MSG is unpleasant. The optimum concentration varies with the type of food; in clear soup, the pleasantness score rapidly falls with more than 1 g of MSG per 100 ml. There is also an interaction between MSG and salt (sodium chloride), and other umami substances such as nucleotides. With these properties, MSG can be used to reduce salt intake (sodium), which predisposes to hypertension, heart diseases and stroke. The taste of low-salt foods improves with MSG even with a 30% salt reduction. The sodium content (in mass percent) of MSG is roughly 3 times lower (12%) than in sodium chloride (39%). Other salts of glutamate have been used in low-salt soups, but with a lower palatability than MSG.
Read more about this topic: Monosodium Glutamate
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