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Glutamic acid and its ions and salts, called glutamates, are flavor-enhancing compounds which provide a umami (savory) taste to food. Glutamic acid is a natural constituent of many fermented or aged foods, including soy sauce, fermented bean paste, and cheese, and is also a component of hydrolyzed protein such as yeast extract. The sodium salt of glutamic acid, monosodium glutamate (MSG), is a widely used additive in the food industry.
Glutamic acid and its salts as food additives have the following E numbers: glutamic acid: E620, monosodium glutamate: E621, monopotassium glutamate: E622, calcium diglutamate: E623, monoammonium glutamate: E624, and magnesium diglutamate: E625.
When glutamic acid or one of its salts is dissolved in aqueous solutions, a pH-dependent instantaneous chemical equilibrium of the amino acid’s ionized forms, including zwitterionic forms, will result. These ions are called glutamates. Only in a dry and crystallized form do defined salts exist. The form ultimately responsible for the taste is the glutamate ion, and the form of glutamic acid at the time of the addition is not important. However, crystalline glutamic acid salts such as monosodium glutamate have a much better and faster solubility compared to crystalline glutamic acid, a property important for its use as a flavor enhancer.
Although they occur naturally in many foods, the flavor contributions made by glutamic acid and other amino acids were only scientifically identified early in the twentieth century. The substance was discovered and identified in the year 1866, by the German chemist Karl Heinrich Leopold Ritthausen. In 1907 Japanese researcher Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University identified brown crystals left behind after the evaporation of a large amount of kombu broth as glutamic acid. These crystals, when tasted, reproduced the ineffable but undeniable flavor he detected in many foods, most especially in seaweed. Professor Ikeda termed this flavor umami. He then patented a method of mass-producing a crystalline salt of glutamic acid, monosodium glutamate.[1][2]
Only the L-glutamate enantiomer has flavor-enhancing properties.[3] Manufactured monosodium glutamate contains over 99.6% of the naturally-predominant L-glutamate form, which is a higher proportion of L-glutamate than found in the free glutamate ions of naturally-occurring foods. Fermented products like soy sauce, steak sauce, and worcestershire sauce have comparable levels of glutamate as foods with added monosodium glutamate. However, glutamate in these brewed products may be composed 5% or more of the D-enantiomer.[3]
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