What’s the distinction between MSG and desk salt? A chemist explains

It’s meal time. You’ve labored exhausting to arrange a nutritious and engaging meal. However after taking your first chunk you are feeling one thing is lacking. Maybe you must have added extra salt? Pepper? Or perhaps even one thing extra unique like monosodium glutamate, higher often known as MSG?

There are lots of meals components utilized in each house cooking and business merchandise. These elements enhance the flavour, odor, texture, look and longevity of meals.

Salt and MSG are two well-known meals components. Each comprise sodium, however there are many variations which you should utilize to your profit.

What’s a salt?

Salts are fabricated from positively and negatively charged parts referred to as ions. Salts usually dissolve in water, and are brittle. The names of salts typically function a steel (positively charged) adopted by a non-metal (negatively charged).

The frequent kitchen ingredient we name “salt” is only one kind of salt. To differentiate it from all different salts, we must always extra particularly consult with it as “desk salt”. Chemically, it’s sodium chloride.

Sodium chloride

After the fast chemistry lesson above, we are able to see that desk salt, sodium chloride, incorporates a positively charged sodium and a negatively charged chlorine.

These charged parts are organized in crystals of salt in a daily repeating sample. Every sodium ion is surrounded by six chloride ions and every chloride ion is surrounded by six sodium ions. This association offers the crystal a “cubic” type. In the event you look carefully at salt, you may even see cube-shaped crystals.

Sodium chloride could be very ample. It’s discovered dissolved in Earth’s oceans. Mineral deposits of salt, often known as halite or rock salt, fashioned from the evaporation and crystallisation of historic seas.

Relying on the supply, the salt might comprise many different hint minerals that may even add color to it, such because the pink-coloured Himalayan salt from Pakistan. Salt will also be fortified with sodium iodide as a public well being measure.

Describing the style of salt is sort of tough with out utilizing the phrase “salty”. It’s a quite common meals additive, as it’s so ample and versatile. It’s a vital ingredient for a lot of conventional meals preservation strategies for meats (pork and fish), greens (kimchi, sauerkraut and pickles), and dairy (cheese and butter).

Salt is taken into account a common flavouring agent. It may well masks bitter flavours and produce out candy, bitter and umami (savoury) ones.

Regardless of standard depictions of style maps, there isn’t a one place on the tongue the place we style salt. Different sodium salts can even give a “salty” style, however the impact declines (and may even flip to bitter) with negatively charged parts aside from chloride.

MSG or monosodium glutamate

Monosodium glutamate can also be a salt. The glutamate is the negatively charged type of glutamic acid, an amino acid that’s present in nature as a constructing block of proteins.

MSG, and extra usually glutamates, are present in a variety of meals together with tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, soy sauce, dried seaweeds, Worcestershire sauce and protein-rich meals. All of those meals impart umami flavours, that are described as savoury or meaty.

Industrial MSG is just not extracted from the setting however produced by bacterial fermentation. Glucose is transformed to glutamic acid, which is additional processed by including sodium hydroxide to type MSG (and water).

MSG is bought as crystals, however they’ve a protracted, prismatic form fairly than the cubic type of sodium chloride. It’s value tasting a couple of crystals of MSG on to expertise the native style of umami.

Regardless of a long time of unhealthy press and concern, MSG is taken into account protected to eat within the concentrations usually present in or added to meals.

Desk salt and MSG each comprise sodium, however at completely different percentages of the overall weight: desk salt has round 40% sodium, versus simply 14% in MSG. You’re additionally extra more likely to be routinely including desk salt to your meals fairly than MSG.

Consuming an excessive amount of sodium is well-known to be unhealthy. Potassium-enriched substitutes have been steered for a spread of well being advantages.

A flavour enhancer

The flavour of MSG might be elevated additional by combining it with different meals components, often known as sodium ribonucleotides.

Japanese and Korean cooks figured this secret out lengthy earlier than chemists, as boiling dried fish and seaweed produces basis shares (dashi) containing a mixture of naturally sourced glutamates and ribonucleotides.

Ribonucleotides are categorised as “usually thought-about as protected” by meals requirements authorities. People eat many grams of the pure equal of their diets.

What might be extra problematic are the carbohydrates- and fat-rich meals which have their flavours enhanced, which may doubtlessly lead us to eat extreme energy.

The mixture of MSG and ribonucleotides produces a more-ish sensation. Subsequent time you see a bag of potato chips or instantaneous noodles, have a fast look to see if it incorporates each MSG (E621) and a ribonucleotide supply (E627–E635).

I personally preserve a jar of MSG in my kitchen. A bit goes a protracted option to elevate a soup, stew or sauce that isn’t fairly tasting the best way you need it to, however with out including an excessive amount of additional sodium.