Fascinating article about the invention of MSG, and whether it’s actually harmful. I already knew some of this, but much of it was new to me:
Probably the most significant discovery in explaining human interest in umami is that human milk contains large amounts of glutamate (at about 10 times the levels present in cow’s milk). Babies have very basic taste buds: it’s believed that mother’s milk offers two taste enhancements – sugar (as lactose) and umami (as glutamate) in the hope that one or other will get the little blighters drinking. Which means mothers’ milk and a packet of cheese’n'onion crisps have rather more in common than you’d think.
At the end of the article is a list of foods containing the most naturally-occurring glutamate, in mg per 100g. Unsurprisingly, everything on the list (except maybe the grape juice and the Roquefort) is delicious:
roquefort cheese 1280
parmesan cheese 1200
soy sauce 1090
walnuts 658
fresh tomato juice 260
grape juice 258
peas 200
mushrooms 180
broccoli 176
tomatoes 140
mushrooms 140
oysters 137
corn 130
potatoes 102
chicken 44
mackerel 36
beef 33
eggs 23
human milk 22
Yes, I see that mushrooms are on the list twice. That’s the British press for you: no fact checkers.
