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Comment by fein | Hacker News Reader

I think part of the problem with MSG is the name. It's hard to convince the general public that something with the name "Monosodium Glutamate" is a naturally occurring substance, let alone one of the more abundant naturally occurring amino acids.

Hell, if we called table salt "Sodium Chloride" all the time, people would probably have a bit of a changed perspective.

None the less, MSG is delicious!

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Conversely, it winds me up when products boast that they have no artificial ingredients, yet have colours or flavours which are mixtures of natural substances that have little to do with the products that they are being used to imitate.

I think that's the idea behind the "All Natural AC'CENT® Flavor Enhancer" branding-- they don't say "monosodium glutamate" anywhere on the package except the ingredients.

I just call it supersalt. Because it's like salt, but not salty!

Technically, MSG is supposed to be the "extra" taste area they didn't know about/ teach in school. So although it seems salty, it's actually the savory flavor. MSG is found in just about every single food you eat that has that "savory" flavor.

Good point, and why it's an indispensable seasoning.

The "Extra" taste is called Umami: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami

Also -- despite what you may have learned in school -- the taste buds aren't mapped to areas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions (Search for Taste for links to the relevant sources)

To clarify, since your parent didn't actually misspeak-- There are actually only five main tastes your taste buds can detect. They just aren't organized by location.

To the best of my knowledge, MSG isn't actually found in most sources of umami, but it's an excellent source of that flavour.

Well-known umami-tasting foods include red meat, cheese and other fermented products, and tomatoes. None of these contain MSG directly (tomatoes get their umami from glutamic acid, according to umamiinfo.com). However, MSG can be used to add more umami flavour, which acts as a flavour enhancer.

MSG basically IS glutamic acid, with Na+ ions.

"MSG is the sodium salt of glutamic acid" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate

You're probably right. Did you know that dihydrogen monoxide kills thousands of people every year? That substance has been found in the blood of every terrorist and serial killer in human history. Scary stuff if you put it that way.

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