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The flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi

The sodium salt of glutamic acid, or monosodium glutamate (MSG), has two effects in foods: one is to induce a unique taste called umami, which is one of the five basic tastes, and the other is to make food palatable (i.e., flavor-enhancing or seasoning effects). However, the mechanism behind how MSG...

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Autores principales: Yamamoto, Takashi, Inui-Yamamoto, Chizuko
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9883458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36707516
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41538-023-00178-2
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author Yamamoto, Takashi
Inui-Yamamoto, Chizuko
author_facet Yamamoto, Takashi
Inui-Yamamoto, Chizuko
author_sort Yamamoto, Takashi
collection PubMed
description The sodium salt of glutamic acid, or monosodium glutamate (MSG), has two effects in foods: one is to induce a unique taste called umami, which is one of the five basic tastes, and the other is to make food palatable (i.e., flavor-enhancing or seasoning effects). However, the mechanism behind how MSG makes food more palatable remains poorly understood, although many food scientists seem to believe that the umami taste itself plays an important role. Here, we propose an alternative notion regarding this topic based on previous and recent studies. When added to complex food compositions, MSG facilitates the binding of existing kokumi substances to kokumi receptors. In turn, these bound kokumi substances enhance the intensity of umami, sweet, salty, and fatty tastes, resulting in increased palatability accompanied by kokumi flavor, such as thickness, mouthfulness, and continuity. The requisite for sufficient palatability and kokumi flavor is a good balance of umami and kokumi substances. This framework gives a scientifically useful background for providing newly developed foods, including cultured meat and plant-based meat substitutes, with good taste characteristics.
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spelling pubmed-98834582023-01-29 The flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi Yamamoto, Takashi Inui-Yamamoto, Chizuko NPJ Sci Food Perspective The sodium salt of glutamic acid, or monosodium glutamate (MSG), has two effects in foods: one is to induce a unique taste called umami, which is one of the five basic tastes, and the other is to make food palatable (i.e., flavor-enhancing or seasoning effects). However, the mechanism behind how MSG makes food more palatable remains poorly understood, although many food scientists seem to believe that the umami taste itself plays an important role. Here, we propose an alternative notion regarding this topic based on previous and recent studies. When added to complex food compositions, MSG facilitates the binding of existing kokumi substances to kokumi receptors. In turn, these bound kokumi substances enhance the intensity of umami, sweet, salty, and fatty tastes, resulting in increased palatability accompanied by kokumi flavor, such as thickness, mouthfulness, and continuity. The requisite for sufficient palatability and kokumi flavor is a good balance of umami and kokumi substances. This framework gives a scientifically useful background for providing newly developed foods, including cultured meat and plant-based meat substitutes, with good taste characteristics. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9883458/ /pubmed/36707516 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41538-023-00178-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Perspective
Yamamoto, Takashi
Inui-Yamamoto, Chizuko
The flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi
title The flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi
title_full The flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi
title_fullStr The flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi
title_full_unstemmed The flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi
title_short The flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi
title_sort flavor-enhancing action of glutamate and its mechanism involving the notion of kokumi
topic Perspective
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9883458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36707516
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41538-023-00178-2
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